A recent seminar on housing zones – London Mayor Boris Johnson’s initiative to accelerate house building in the capital and deliver 50,000 homes by 2025 – was described by those who attended as a ‘love-in’. 

Why so positive? As Richard Blakeway, London’s deputy mayor for housing, explained, housing zones have three distinguishing factors.

First, they lend focus to a process which inevitably involves multiple parties: councils, landowners, health and education authorities and Transport for London, to name but a few. 

Second, backed by City Hall, they offer planning certainty. A housing zone designation will give stakeholders confidence that the scheme will actually be delivered.

And third, housing zone finance is both innovative and flexible. Boroughs receiving a slice of the £400 million available – half is from the GLA, half from central government – are not bound to spend it on housing alone. The Haringey bid, for example, specifies that the north London borough would spend some of its allocation on bridges designed to open up new areas for housing and improve the public realm.

At the seminar, the three of the first nine applicant boroughs to be awarded housing zone status described three very divergent approaches to their plans, delivering not just homes, but also regeneration and a sense of place.

How the plans compare

• Lewisham’s ‘New Bermondsey’ scheme proposes mixed-use, urban redevelopment on top of very good access to transport (the scheme includes a new station and bus routes) on a semi-industrial site around Millwall football stadium.
• Harrow offers a vision of a more suburban scheme across nine sites. Crucially, here the local authority is putting forward some of its own assets for redevelopment, including car parks and a large and under-used civic centre.
• Haringey plans a scheme in Tottenham under the banner ‘More, faster, better’. Councillors estimate that housing zone status will enable them to deliver 5,500 homes - 1,700 more than would be possible without help from the scheme. The blueprint includes a new school, better transport and improvements to the local environment – a package aimed at encouraging people to put down roots in the area.

Thus, it's clear that housing zones are stimulating people to think differently about planning, finance and creating a sense of place. 

The seminar aimed to raise awareness of the policy and, perhaps, to encourage potential partners to get involved in the zones.

‘Love-in’ or not, let’s hope that London’s housing zones fulfil their early promise.