I have been thinking this week about two different but interrelated issues. Firstly, the fallout from the allocation process for the GLA affordable homes programme and secondly the endless discussions about viability or lack of it.

Re the first big talking point the grant allocation in London. I am always a glass half full person so to me £6 billion plus for affordable housing with another £5bilion still to allocate seems like good news. Similarly, 60% of that being allocated to local authorities so they can once again build house has got to be a good thing. The times when the UK has actually built enough housing have all been when local authorities were key players. Important as the HA sector is they can’t be the sole provider of subsidised housing. Yes, some housing associations didn’t get any grant this time and most got only 40% of what they asked for. However, the programme was over subscribed and better to give a significant number a significant amount rather than everyone a penny packet. While no doubt some of those not getting anything failed to follow the bidding criteria “we are a very big and important member of the G15 and should be given all we ask for” wasn’t one suspects the model answer but probably was what was submitted.  One can of course argue that London should have got more of the national pot but given that it costs more to deliver an affordable home in London than elsewhere is a logic for weighting the funding allocation to where, as the Americans would say, get more bang for your buck.  So overall I think pretty good news, and we need to take it as such.

On the viability issue again, one tends to think some in the industry protest too much. Yes, it’s a challenging time and a macro economic environment in which investing in development does not stack well against other ways to make a return on an investment is never going to make things easy. Similarly fire safety and other planning obligations do add cost, but can we genuinely say that the industry is genuinely designing the most cost-efficient buildings and that contractor and supply chain management is delivering best value. Most of the planning requirements in London are basically sensible all be it sometimes inflexibly applied and do lead to a better product for the people who will live in the homes that are built which is the key point. We therefore need to design homes to these standards in the most efficient way with a real focus on how buildings stack, floor to wall ratios and M&E costs. If we are honest a lot of money is leaking out through poor design and procurement and supply chain management. Of course, it’s easier to blame the regulatory framework but we need to look at how we can better respond to it.

On a totally unrelated point is great to see Oxford Street finally being pedestrianised. I worked on the never to be Oxford Street tram project which with its sister Cross River tram would have transformed London, if only the money had been available and parts of TfL had got fully behind it.  The new scheme delivers at least part of that vision and is a huge step forward. London buses always insisted the world would end if they couldn’t maintain the world’s longest linear bus station so great to see thinking has moved on. 

The only sad thing is that the new plans don’t incorporate provision for cyclists who are now forced onto the neighbouring streets with the no doubt angry bus and taxi drivers. If a dedicated lane along the alignment of what would have the tram line is too costly a pragmatic compromise would be to allow cycling before 10am and after 8pm when the shops are shut and greater passive surveillance in what will be particularly in the morning a very quiet place would be a real benefit.  Sadly, the anti-cycling lobby seem to have held sway here. Will take time but we do need to get to a cultural position where cycling and walking are seen as complimentary not competing modes.