Kingston Council and the Greater London Authority want to build a massive 55,000 new homes across the Borough in 22 years. There are currently around 67,000 homes. They also want to make provision for 43,000 new jobs. On top of that, they want to make us an "opportunity area" in which housing densities are the maximum possible in any location within a arbitrarily defined area

Is this right? We know that our council has given its officers unfettered powers to persuade us to sell them our homes so they can clear land for development - they can buy any property that is worth £1 million or less. Meanwhile, the GLA has made it clear that it will support local authorities in delivering housing in strategically important areas such as opportunity areas and will no doubt make funds available at a competitive cost to facilitate housing purchases.

But there may be a problem.

It appears that the GLA did not complete an Equalities Impact Assessment before it agreed housing targets with our Council in the London Plan. In this case, our Borough's housing targets and "opportunity area" status are surely unsound.

What do you think the effects will be on people with protected characteristics of such a massive housing programme, not to mention the desire to provide for an additional 43000 jobs in the Borough? Is it right that the GLA could have set our targets without assessing who will be affected and how? Are their plans fundamentally discriminatory?

Read Just Space, the community group's, comments to the Inspectors of the Examination in Public of the London Plan, and decide for yourself:

33. Minimisation of the negative effects of Opportunity Areas and Regeneration mechanisms is described as relying on local consultation and on close attention to the demography which is an inadequate approach and should be considered at this strategic plan-making stage.

34. There is no reference to the likely losses of low rent housing in the existing stock – through Right to Buy, through ‘conversion’ of social rents to higher rents within or between tenancies or though estate “regeneration” or redevelopment or small-site redevelopments.

35. Paragraph 1.5.14 of Appendix 3 is paradigmatic of the Mayor’s flawed approach to the PSED. Paragraph 1.5.14 states, “It is considered that seeking to deliver more homes and the delivery of the 50 per cent genuinely affordable housing target will have an overall positive impact. However, the level and tenure of affordable housing that can be delivered is constrained by viability and the availability and conditions of funding. Thus, while providing a potential positive impact on those with protected characteristics in need of affordable housing, the impact of Policies (H5-7) will be constrained as they will not meet all identified need. It should also be noted that the London Plan has no remit over how homes are allocated. The Mayor's Housing strategy sets out how the Mayor is lobbying Government for more funding for genuinely affordable housing, in particular low-cost rent, and the Plan commits to reviewing both the threshold (to determine whether the threshold affordable housing level should increase) and the minimum tenure splits (set out in Policy H7) in 2021.”

36. The paragraph above shows the Mayor’s faulty approach: (a) it talks vaguely about a “potential positive impact” when in fact Sian Berry AM in her research report “No Show Homes”, gives the true picture of what has been happening in respect of affordable homes and this clearly disproportionately has a negative impact on specific protected groups, (the disabled, BAME households, and so on); (b) It makes excuses about homes allocation and the Mayor lobbying Government; (c) it commits to review the threshold in 2021 – but none of these points address the need to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination.

37. The Mayor ignored the evidence provided by Sian Berry in her report, “No Show Homes” published in September 2018. Her research report shows that missed planning targets have led to a shortfall of more than 33,000 affordable homes across London since January 2016. Her report finds a shocking gap between the potential for affordable homes in developments being planned, based on the existing (Johnson Mayoralty) London Plan targets, and what boroughs have secured in the past two and a half years under the current Mayor. The 153,232 homes that have gained planning permission since January 2016 could have included 61,293 homes defined as affordable under current policies, which set a London-wide target of 40 per cent. Instead, just 27,869 affordable homes have been secured by planning agreements, which means there are 33,424 missing affordable homes across London in this period.

38. The “No Show Homes” report also looked at whether the Mayor’s new 'fast track' supplementary planning policy is starting to have an effect. This de facto policy came into effect in August 2017, and offers developers who agree to provide 35 per cent affordable homes a route to planning permission that avoids viability assessments. There are signs that the Mayor may be able to strengthen the policy's threshold beyond 35 per cent in future, but he has no plans to do anything more than review this in 2021. However, given the Mayor’s duty to eliminate or mitigate race discrimination in housing, the Mayor could raise that threshold now, not review it in 2021.

39. To put it another way, there are available strategies and policies that could help eliminate discrimination in housing but the plan does not propose or adopt any of them. Instead it repeats the optimistic mantra that building more homes will benefit everyone including those in protected groups or with protected characteristics. This is wishful thinking, not evidence-based Equality Impact Assessments.

40. The erroneous approach to the PSED can be seen when considering BAME groups and Opportunity Areas, see paragraph 7.1.2: “There is the potential, however, that the scale of development in these areas could result in displacement of existing residents and communities, local shops and services, higher rents, or development that does not take account of what is valued in an area.” (emphasis added). In fact, evidence already in existence and available to the Mayor – and evidence presented throughout the EIP - shows this is not a potential but a reality as to what is happening and has already happened in
London; Elephant and Castle and the Heygate Estate were given as examples. This particularly impacts on BAME communities, the elderly and those with large families (which often coincides with particular faith or religious groups who tend to have larger size families).

41. Simply stating, as the Mayor does, that building more houses will somehow address the discriminatory effect of this is simply incorrect, because the new homes are, under the Mayor’s current proposals, at rent levels higher than what those affected groups currently pay or can afford to pay – so the policy contributes to, instead of eliminating, the displacement of poor, BAME and elderly residents and larger families, in a policy-driven effect that some have called “social cleansing”.

42. The same points can be made – and were made during the EIP hearing - about the Mayor’s regeneration policies, which have no regard for the disproportionate impact on BAME communities, - and this may constitute indirect discrimination under the EA 2010 as well as a failure to have due regard to the PSED."