The Raw Ambition of London’s New Housing Target

As House building in London continues to crater, lots of people seem to be comparing output to the Government’s target of 88k/annum. And, sure the collapse is bad, but maybe we should also think about just how crazy ambitious the target is.

Here’s the number of households in London since 1901 with a little projection at the end for the current target. That target assumes growth more than twice as fast as the 20th century average. Well over 20% growth in a decade.

Moreover, we actively facilitated the previous growth with vast quantities of additional infrastructure. That included the Metroland expansion, most of the Tube, vast slum clearances. But Government doesn’t seem to have anything remotely comparable up it’s sleeve to support these it’s present ambitions – despite the aspiration to go twice as hard.

Those targets were always [cough] very ambitious. It is now pretty obvious that they aren’t going to happen. Perhaps, now would be a good time to think about the kind of growth we actually need?

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