Wandsworth Local Plan Partial Review: an Update

We wrote on these pages in February about Wandsworth Council’s partial review of its Local Plan , and again in March about the GLA’s opposition to most of the changes. The review is now reaching its final stages. An inspector has now been appointed to assess the changes, and he will hold an ‘Examination in Public’ in the Town Hall from 4-6 November.

The Local Plan currently in force was drafted under the previous Council regime in 2020-2021. The current Labour Council initiated the review in 2023, a year after it was elected. Its core aim has been to increae the amount of affordable housing required when large developments take place, from 35% to 50%, along with changes to the need for ‘viability assessments’. Other changes seek further restrictions on the development of purpose built student accommodation and on large-scale ‘co-living’ developments; and changes to policies relating to ‘build-to-rent’ developments.

The Battersea Society’s response to the proposed changes was initially broadly positive. But we objected strongly to the lack of ambition in proposed changes to the size of homes to be built, urging a much stronger emphasis on family-sized housing, especially for social rent, rather than smaller one-bed-sized homes..

But since 2023, London’s housing crisis has worsened significantly. Increases in building costs, the need for new safety measures followig the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the financial difficulties housing associations are facing, and other issues have all brought housing starts - espcially for affordable housing - to a near halt, The Government and the Mayor have therefore announced a series of emergency measures intended to kick-start new housing developments. One of the key measures is to reduce from 35% to 20% the threshold proprtion of affordable housing which developers must provide without the need to present a series of detailed financial viability assessments.

Although the emergency measures are not yet in place, it is against this background that the inspector will be asessing the Council’s proposed increase in the threshold to 50%.

The Society has presented a new assessment of the Council’s proposals, and we shall participate in the Examination in Public next month. We’ll keep you posted.