IN Brief:
- The draft London Plan allocates capacity for 558,000 homes between 2027 and 2036.
- Affordable-housing thresholds will vary by location, tenure, and development route.
- Brownfield intensification remains the priority, although selected Green Belt sites will also be considered.
The Greater London Authority has published a draft London Plan setting out capacity for 558,000 new homes between 2027 and 2036, alongside revised policies covering affordable housing, density, Green Belt development, infrastructure, and economic growth.
Ten-year housing targets have been allocated to each London borough, while City Hall has reduced the document to nearly half the length of the plan adopted in 2021. The revised format is intended to give planning authorities, developers, designers, and project teams clearer direction on how sites should be assessed and brought forward.
Brownfield land remains central to the strategy, with higher densities encouraged around existing and planned public transport, wider use of mid-rise development, and a more plan-led approach to tall buildings. Seventeen strategic locations have been identified as potentially suitable for London’s tallest structures, although individual proposals will still need to address local design, heritage, infrastructure, environmental, and transport conditions.
Because brownfield capacity alone is considered insufficient, selected Green Belt land may also be released where development can provide affordable housing, transport connectivity, biodiversity improvements, and access to green space. Rather than presenting release as a general relaxation, the draft ties it to strategic site selection and infrastructure-led growth.
Affordable housing will be among the most closely examined areas during consultation. Although the strategic ambition remains for half of new homes to be affordable, the draft introduces tiered fast-track thresholds intended to reflect differences in site economics, tenure, and land availability.
Brownfield schemes are expected to work within thresholds generally ranging from 20% to 35%, while Green Belt development would normally be required to achieve 50%. More than a third of London boroughs are expected to return to a 35% threshold from 2028, with different requirements applying elsewhere according to local viability and delivery conditions.
Projects meeting the relevant threshold would gain access to a more direct planning route, reducing the need for prolonged viability negotiations. Schemes falling below it would continue to face closer scrutiny, including review mechanisms intended to capture additional value if financial performance improves during delivery.
Delivery remains tied to finance and infrastructure
Allocating capacity provides a clearer indication of where City Hall expects growth to occur, although consented land will only translate into starts where finance, construction costs, sales values, and infrastructure requirements can be reconciled. Elevated borrowing costs, material-price volatility, labour shortages, building-safety obligations, and weaker residential sales have already slowed the pace at which approved schemes move into construction.
With London still ranked among the world’s costliest construction markets, complex logistics, constrained sites, professional fees, and regulatory requirements continue to place pressure on development appraisals. Those conditions become more acute when planning authorities seek larger affordable-housing contributions while developers are carrying higher finance and build costs.
The draft responds by asking planning authorities to consider the cumulative effect of policy requirements, Community Infrastructure Levy charges, and project-specific obligations. It also recognises that early phases of specialist housing, including purpose-built student accommodation and large-scale shared living, can sometimes establish value and support the delivery of a wider masterplan.
Transport investment will remain decisive, particularly where higher densities depend on projects such as the Bakerloo line extension or West London Orbital. Without additional transport and utility capacity, pressure can move quickly from the planning system into grid connections, water supply, schools, healthcare, and local road networks.
Data centres, employment clusters, high streets, and the night-time economy are also included within the spatial strategy. Housing growth is therefore being planned alongside the commercial space, power infrastructure, public services, and transport capacity required to support a larger population.
Higher-density development will also place more emphasis on design coordination, fire engineering, façade performance, servicing, and public-realm management. As schemes become taller and more mixed in use, the construction programme must accommodate increasingly complex interfaces between residential, commercial, transport, and cultural functions.
The draft will now proceed through consultation before examination and adoption, currently expected in 2028. During that period, boroughs and developers will test whether the proposed thresholds and site allocations remain workable under live market conditions.
The housing target establishes a substantial pipeline, but the pace of construction will depend on whether land, finance, infrastructure, planning, and contractor capacity can be aligned closely enough to move projects from policy into delivery.
