Sadiq Khan explains why he’s changed his mind on green belt housing

Evening Standard

Transcript

00:00I mean, I've watched you give categorical assurances that protecting the green balance is important to you.

00:05What's made you turn back on that commitment?

00:07Oh, let me be frank. This is a change in policy, a change in approach from myself and City Hall.

00:12It's for a very simple reason.

00:15We've made really positive progress over the last nine years in terms of numbers of homes completed,

00:20council house building, numbers of homes that are affordable, meeting government targets and so forth.

00:26But we're still falling way short of the needs of our city.

00:30I meet too many young Londoners in particular who can't afford to rent in London, let alone buy.

00:35I meet too many young couples who want to start a family and so are choosing to either leave London or defer having a child.

00:42I meet professionals with good jobs living in their parents' home in their childhood bedrooms.

00:48I'm speaking to families who are living in damp and mouldy accommodation,

00:51teachers who are teaching children who are living in temporary accommodation.

00:55So what I've been asking today is a change.

00:58What it is, is me consulting letters about a policy to proactively look for land on the green belt

01:06that we can build on homes with conditions attached.

01:11And people reading this will assume or watching this will assume all green belt is green and pleasant,

01:17it's rich with wildlife, but it's not the case.

01:21A lot of it is poor quality, badly maintained, inaccessible to Londoners.

01:26How many homes per year need to be built in the green belt and what sort of order of magnitude are we talking about?

01:31That's one of the things that the London plan will be looking into.

01:34So we're consulting from today until the 22nd of June in relation to what I've announced today.

01:40We've already begun a review in relation to the green belt to do with grey areas.

01:45Once we get the responses back to this consultation,

01:48the team will start working on a draft and the plan which will publish next year.

01:51That will set out not just the targets for each borough,

01:54but what we think we'll need from brownfield sites and green belt.

01:58I understand you can't prejudge particular sites.

02:01Are there broad corners of the capital that hold potential here in terms of suitable land?

02:05Just to reassure your viewers and your readers,

02:07we're not talking about going anywhere near our gorgeous parks and green spaces.

02:12I'm the mayor that has either improved or increased the amount of green space in our city by more than 900 hectares.

02:17That's between 6,000 and 7,000 football pitches,

02:21planted more than half a million trees, rewilded in our city.

02:24I think nature and homes go hand in hand.

02:26It's not a false choice between a house building and protecting the environment,

02:30but there are pockets of land within London.

02:34Roughly speaking, more than a fifth of our cities is green belt.

02:37Outside of London, the green belt area is three times the size of our city.

02:41We think only 13% is parks or space that are accessible to Londoners,

02:46so we'll be practically looking for those parts of the green belt,

02:50which are badly maintained, more quality, not accessible to Londoners,

02:53where with the right conditions, and the conditions are going to be well-designed homes,

02:57good quality homes, maximising affordability, making sure they have good transport connections,

03:03improving and increasing biodiversity,

03:05making sure there's good green spaces Londoners can have access to,

03:08with the right conditions, build the homes we need.

03:11You've said you want to maximise the number of affordable homes built as part of these proposals.

03:16Are you frustrated, as Florence Eshalomi has said she is,

03:18about the government's refusal to set a target for the number of social homes

03:22it's going to build as part of the 1.5 million?

03:24It's promising.

03:25Well, look, I've got targets in London,

03:27and so what I want from the government at this stage is funding, frankly speaking,

03:30and support, and they support our policies that I've announced today,

03:35and the consultation.

03:37The big ask that I've got from the government is not in terms of saying how much of the new homes

03:42should be affordable, because I can do that in London,

03:45it's about getting the right quantum over the next few years.

03:48In London, as you'll remember, and I was reminded this morning by one of my team,

03:52I've defined what genuinely affordable here is,

03:54it's either a home that's a council home,

03:56it's a home where you pay London live and rent a third of average earnings,

03:59or it's shared ownership, part by part rent.

04:01This great development in Kidbrook Village in Greenwich

04:04has more than a third of homes that are genuinely affordable.

04:08Since I've been mayor, we've managed to increase the numbers of affordable homes

04:11and major developments to 42%,

04:13so developers, councils, house associations know where I stand on this issue,

04:18but we'll be consulting on that as well, in terms of the next draft on the plan.

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