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Framework reveals need for vigilance on housing targets
• SOME of your readers will have talked about the council’s new planning arrangements, the Local Development Framework (LDF), at area forums this month.
We know many people’s eyes glaze over when they see a planning document, but there are some important things about our future access to housing in this document, and it is not too late to write in to the council with your comments.
There are three large volumes to this proposed framework. When you start out on Volume 1, you see cosy reassuring statements about the council’s target for 50 per cent affordable housing from all developments in the borough. This is the council’s current position.
When you reach Volume 2, on page 20 of “Camden’s Preferred Development Policies” you get this: “The council is aware that the 50 per cent affordable housing target cannot be delivered for schemes that are close to the threshold, and is unlikely to be deliverable for schemes which provide less than 3,500 sq m of housing (approx 35 dwellings)… The council will take the following positive measures to bring forward schemes that reach or exceed the 10 dwelling threshold:
The 50 per cent target will operate on a sliding scale, subject to development viability, with a norm of 10 per cent for 1,000 sq m (gross) of additional housing and 50 per cent for 5,000 sq m (gross) of additional housing – considered to be sites with capacity of 10 dwellings and 50 dwellings respectively.”
This is, of course, not a jargon-free business! But the bottom line is that the council’s commitment to obtaining 50 per cent affordable housing from new developments would be fatally undermined by this approach.
We are concerned that the Conservative/ Liberal Democrat administration is watering down our access to new housing by this measure, buried deep in the LDF documents. If that is what they want to do, they should not go round saying they are sticking to a 50 per cent target for affordable housing.
If you think about the area south of the Euston Road, where space is so limited, we are most unlikely to get any affordable housing at all under this proposal, whereas, as we speak, there is a small development in Whitfield Street which is yielding 50 per cent affordable housing on a site of 22 dwellings.
So come on, Camden, let’s have less of the “poor little developer, let’s make life easy for you”, and more of standing up for residents’ need for housing.
And, Liberal Democrats, make sure you stand up against the “Boris effect”.
If you want to have your say on this important issue, write to Forward Planning, FREEPOST NAT15037, LB Camden, Town Hall Extension, Argyle Street, WC1H 8EQ.
Or email to ldf@camden.gov.uk or comment via Camden.gov.uk/ldf.
Cllr Penny Abraham
Labour, Bloomsbury ward
Cllr Roger Robinson
Labour St Pancras and Somers Town
Cllr Sue Vincent
Labour, Holborn & Covent Garden ward
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