Sadiq KhanThe Housing deputy will say today that he and the mayor They are “sassy YIMBYs” who are “ready” to work with an incoming Labour The Government will promote the construction of housing in London.
In a speech at Central London At the think tank’s housing summit, Deputy Mayor Tom Copley is expected to praise Khan’s record in housing construction, while warning that a national crisis in the construction industry represents a “calamity” for people homeless.
The YIMBY movement, which stands for “Yes in my backyard”, has opposed the NIMBYs (Not in my backyard), who, according to the former, selfishly seek to block planning applications for much-needed housing projects.
But in his speech, Copley will warn that YIMBYism can sometimes “become too narrow in its diagnosis of what is holding back development,” adding: “Like the proverbial man who only has a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail, if our only solution is ‘planning reform’, then it all starts to look like the fault of the planning system.”
The deputy mayor says he instead believes in “progressive YIMBYism,” which involves “involving the public sector more directly in construction.”
He will tell the summit: “You don’t have to travel too far to see how this can be done. In March I visited Vienna and saw how its municipal government is delivering housing, including a large number of social rental housing, both on its own and through partnerships with the private sector.
“In London, we stand ready to help the new Labor Government achieve its ambitious national target of 1.5 million homes in one Parliament.”
Khan was criticized by his Conservative rival Susan Hall during the recent mayoral election, after Provisional Government data revealed that only 580 new homes were started in London in the last three months of 2023. The figure is a historic low for the capital, although falls have been recorded in all regions of England.
The mayor argued that the Government’s lack of clarity over new fire safety regulations (requiring second staircases in tall buildings) had created uncertainty in London’s housebuilding sector, as the technical requirements of the new regulations They were not published until March of this year.
In his speech, the deputy mayor will rebuke the “lack of action” of ministers in the midst of the “deep real estate crisis throughout the country”, saying: “The response of the conservatives At the national level it has been taking a step back instead of taking a step forward.
“They have reduced their housing targets, reduced the ambition of their Affordable Housing Programme, and stood by while housing construction falls off a cliff.”