Support for housebuilding

The Greater London Authority has now adopted its Support for Housebuilding London Plan Guidance, following consultation on the draft guidance published in late 2025.

 

The guidance forms part of the wider emergency housing package announced by the Government and Mayor of London in October 2025, responding to challenging market conditions, rising delivery costs and a sharp slowdown in housing construction across the capital. The final guidance was approved in March 2026 and is intended to accelerate delivery, unlock stalled sites and support the provision of more affordable homes.

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The guidance introduces time-limited changes to the way parts of the London Plan are applied. It updates guidance relating to Policy T5, on cycle parking, and Policy D6, on housing design standards, while also creating a new emergency route for qualifying affordable housing schemes. The route is available for validated planning applications until 31 March 2028, by which time the next London Plan is expected to have been adopted.

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A major change is the temporary reduction in minimum cycle parking requirements for residential development, student accommodation and large-scale purpose-built shared living. The objective is not to remove the need for good-quality cycle parking, but to allow a more proportionate approach where excessive basement or podium provision may affect viability. The guidance allows greater flexibility in how provision is delivered, including shared cycle spaces, hire schemes, on-street solutions and folding-cycle storage, provided security, accessibility and usability remain acceptable.

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The final guidance also confirms greater flexibility in the application of housing design standards. Previous guidance requiring all homes to be dual aspect, and limiting the number of homes per core per floor, has been withdrawn or replaced. London Plan Policy D6 still requires high-quality design, including adequate daylight, privacy, ventilation and internal living conditions, but the guidance gives decision-makers more scope to support well-designed schemes where single-aspect homes or higher numbers of units per core are necessary to make development deliverable.

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The most commercially significant change is the new Time-Limited Planning Route for affordable housing. On private land, residential schemes providing at least 20 per cent affordable housing may proceed without a full viability assessment, subject to meeting the relevant criteria. On public land, and certain industrial land where floorspace capacity is not re-provided, the threshold is 35 per cent. The route is intended to provide greater certainty, reduce delay and avoid repeated viability negotiations where schemes are capable of making a defined affordable housing contribution.

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The Government’s associated CIL relief is intended to operate alongside this route. Qualifying schemes delivering at least 20 per cent affordable housing can access 50 per cent relief from borough CIL, rising on a linear basis to a maximum of 80 per cent relief where at least 35 per cent affordable housing is provided. For most schemes, at least 60 per cent of the affordable homes must be Social Rent, although an alternative tenure route is proposed for Build to Rent schemes.

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A review mechanism remains central to the package. Where schemes do not progress to the required construction milestone by March 2030, viability can be revisited so that any improvement in market conditions may translate into additional affordable housing. This is designed to balance short-term delivery support with the need to avoid permanently locking in reduced affordable housing contributions.

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Taken together, the measures represent a clear shift towards delivery-led decision-making in London. The key issue is whether temporary flexibility on standards, viability and CIL is enough to move stalled schemes into construction without undermining long-term expectations on design quality, infrastructure funding and affordable housing delivery. In practice, the guidance gives developers and landowners a stronger short-term route to bring forward marginal schemes, but it also places greater emphasis on early strategy, clear evidence and careful positioning at application stage.