Xiaohongshu
What is the New London Plan?
The Mayor of London’s London Plan is the strategic plan for the development London’s physical space. It seeks to provide a framework for how the city should grow and develop over time.
The current London Plan was adopted in 2021 and set out policies and proposal for London’s development until 2041. The next London Plan will extend until 2050 and responds to various challenges facing the capital including housing delivery, climate change, economic growth and sustainability.
Our Submission and Why it Matters
Our submission to the ‘Draft London Plan’ consultation presented a student-centred response to specific policies which will impact the students living and studying in the capital.
This is our second response to a consultation about the London Plan. Our response to the original high-level document, which set out a path towards the development of the London Plan, was necessarily broad. This time around, the consultation centred on the ‘soundness’, meaning broadly suitability, of specific policies.
We opted to focus on two particular policies in the Draft London Plan that will have consequences for the affordability of accommodation for students:
- HN3 Delivering affordable housing – which sets targets for the development of affordable housing in London.
- HN5 Managing specialist accommodation – which includes Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA).
We argued that both these policies were unsound in their treatment of PBSAs. Where the previous plan had set out separate policies and targets for the development of affordable PBSAs, the Draft London Plan bring all housing together under a single policy. This policy itself will be tiered, with lower levels of required affordable housing on outer London boroughs. The plan further creates circumstances under which developers are not obligated to meet affordability targets.
We argued that this could lead to a decline in the availability of affordable student housing and the concentration of this provision in outer London boroughs, forcing more students to commute longer distances. The impact of this on the existing public transport network is not addressed in the Plan, nor does there appear to be provisions in place to mitigate the cost of commuting for students.
Throughout the plan, students and their needs have not been adequately represented. Our submission is important has it reflects this neglected student view.