Lewisham to take part in housing development pilot project

A government housing announcement today reveals that Lewisham Council will take part in a housing pilot on brownfield land.

The project will see taxpayers fund land clean-ups to enable redevelopment however the council will not build any site themselves.

The Department for Housing states: “Small Sites Aggregator pilot in Bristol, Sheffield and the London Borough of Lewisham will unlock sites that would otherwise not have been developed, while attracting private investment to build new social rent homes.”

Council clearing land but being prevented from building seems a common theme of recent governments of all types; £225 million was spent by taxpayers clearing land across Greenwich peninsula and building infrastructure between 1997 and the early 2000s under New Labour before it was handed to private developers. Twenty five years later and much land remains undeveloped.

Back then it was expected that 10,000 new homes, of which 38 per cent will be affordable housing, would be built on the Peninsula over the next 15 years. It didn’t happen.

Years of failure

Over in Lewisham the borough is in severe need of more council and social homes given around 2,000 people are in expensive temporary housing a raft of cuts was recently announced in part due to high resulting costs.

While that’s happening Lewisham also have public sites such as Besson Street sitting empty for 16 years.

The authority has opted for a joint public-private partnership on site with zero social or council homes included. Previous council housing on site was demolished alongside businesses. Nothing has yet commenced since 2009 plans unveiled.

Much in line with this government’s prevailing aversion to public building, Lewisham recently announced further public-private partnerships.

Today’s announcement

Given claims recently by government in various announcements it’s well worth delving in a bit deeper into the reality behind the press releases.

One of the biggest examples of recent announcements falling far short of grand claims was for grant funding enabling new homes via the Affordable Housing Programme since the government took office. Some of the client press dutifully cut and pasted prior claims without any analysis.

Fortunately some do look at what’s happening and excellent analysis by the Centre for Cities shows the reality, with announcements so far on annual affordable housing resulting in funding levels below prior annual amounts from the last Conservative government in their 2021-2025 Affordable Housing Programme.

Some in the party have argued to wait until the Spending Review, though concerning news was out last night on that front. Rachel Reeves appears to be hostile to substantial additional funding for social housing according to The Guardian.

Now, this is likely to be a touch of pre-funding jockeying by Ministers but Reeves has shown minimal interest so far in a serious increase in funding for social housing. There was little extra funding in the budget and as highlighted top-ups barely keep up with prior Tory levels despite build costs ramping up.

Minimal funds for a growing crises

So far just £2 billion is confirmed in grant funding for 2026/27 (below prior Tory levels announced four years ago) while the annual housing benefit bill and cost to councils for temporary housing – due to a lack of social/council homes – is now looking to reach more than £33bn in 2026/27.

Once again its minimal funds for building new homes but somehow there’s always funds for the side effect of that policy: ever more billions for private landlords.

Today’s announcement that the private sector will fund social homes again shows an aversion for using public money to build council housing. What will the private sector gain? Will it be another example of public funds heading into the pockets of private interests? Certainly something to watch.

Supporters

Let’s look at one of the developers praising today’s announcement. Pocket Living are highlighted with the company seeing former Greenwich & Woolwich MP on the Board after he stood down from the Commons. Nick Raynsford was MP for the area before current Housing Minister Matt Pennycook.

You may recall that Greenwich Council sought to sell public land off cheaply for Pocket Living despite a rising housing crises costing the council ever more sums claiming they couldn’t develop the land.

Pocket Living would have built zero social homes on former public land with each flat at the very legal limit for size given how small they were. Eventually just one site was disposed by the council to pocket Living and Greenwich embarked on direct council building themselves via the excellent Greenwich Builds programme.

One of the Greenwich Builds projects was just nominated for an award yet the programme of direct building now looks like being scaled back. Why? A lack of support by a Labour government for a Labour council’s housebuilding programme.

Good news

It’s not all bad news in today’s announcement with support for small and medium enterprises. Their total of housing development has shrunk hugely since the 1970s with ever more development derived from fewer, large-scale companies.

However sluggish moves since taking power are doing little for many small builders as numbers hitting insolvency remain extremely high. If housing is ever going to get close to targets they must play a key role.