When I started this site I had two goals. Firstly to uncover the kinds of practices that allow a small group of people to make vast amounts of money off the financial misery of the majority of Londoners. Second I wanted to do something about it. I was perhaps driven by a slightly naive belief […]
Sadiq’s deal with the developers – The Affordable Housing and Viability SPG
Last week the consultation on the Mayor of London’s new Affordable Housing and Viability Supplementary Planning Guidance closed. You can see and download my full response to the consultation at the end of this post, but the main issues are summarised below. Viability and affordable housing The issue of affordable housing and viability has been […]
Sadiq spins the revolving door for financial viability consultants
In August, the new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced that he would be employing an expert group to scrutinise affordable housing viability assessments, the documents property developers have to submit to councils when they want to drop affordable housing obligations. We have reported on a number of occasions on how viability assessments are used […]
Pie in the sky – Vauxhall Sky Gardens
OurCity.London reveals more evidence of how leading surveyors cook the books in order to remove affordable housing from a luxury housing development. I first wrote about this case three years ago. Frasers property had been granted planning permission to build a quite specularly ugly tower in Vauxhall in 2008. The original planning permission came with […]
RIBA Mayoral Debate on the built environment
A recording of the debate held at the Royal Institute of British Architects on February 16th 2016 between the Mayoral candidates who could be bothered to turn up (Zac and Sadique couldn’t)
Recent Comments