26 Jun Affordability, community and regeneration are West London’s prime housing focus
At the “What’s new in West London homes?” panel at the Capital West London Conference 2023, delegates heard how West London’s homes have evolved since the pandemic and have adapted their approaches by listening to the community’s needs while also ensuring a sustainable future.
With Harrow being second on the London Vitality Index 2023, Dipti Patel, Corporate Director Place at Harrow Council and her team are in tune with their local community.
Dipti said: “The key thing for me is engagement with our local communities. It’s about more than just providing new homes, it’s about bringing our local communities together to understand what is important to improve proposed developments. They need to feel part of it and get value out of it.”
From infrastructure and connectivity to creating thriving community spaces for inclusive working and living environments, “it’s about our communities and how we want to stay,” she added.
According to Dipti, the borough is currently seeking multigenerational homes, starter homes, and a big focus on co-living. The Council is also exploring build-to-rent but Dipti noted that “location is key,” in deciding the housing mix.
Barratt London has developments in six of seven West London boroughs, Martin Scholar, Head of Planning at Barratt London, highlighted its future opportunities.
Sustainability is an important aspect for the company, they have pledged to create zero-carbon homes by 2030. As part of this goal, all developments are taking place on brownfield sites, and they have begun a research collaboration with the University of Salford, called the Zed house, to test different sustainable technologies and futureproof accommodations of different types.
Martin said: “The opportunity for us is around land. The way the regulations are going and what Barratt wants is a common outcome, I am feeling positive. We are seeing significant carbon reduction in the schemes that we are taking through planning now. So, we are at a reasonable place considering the 2030 targets.
He adds, there is also a lot of reliance on planning policies when it comes to development, but affordability is critical.
Jacqueline Esimaje-Heath, Growth Director at L&Q said: “With costs on the rise, it has been a difficult few years to make the equation work, but we’ve managed to increase the amount of affordable housing that has been delivered this year. Our approach is to continue delivering both affordable housing and private housing at a cost that generates surpluses, half of which is used to pay for affordable housing.”
This was identified as a mixture of affordable rented housing, at low-cost rent or social rent, shared ownership, which is seeing an increase with the removal of the Help-to-Buy scheme and London living rent.
She said: “It’s a mixed bag, we will continue to deliver a range we can flip between depending on what’s happening. I would say that the biggest opportunity we have now is around the regeneration of our systems, focusing on investing in our stock and on building safety.”
Jamie Thompson, Associate Director at Faithful + Gould noted the importance of Passivhaus, referring to its rigorous energy-efficient design, adding that its other benefits included the addition of comfort to tenants from quality construction and helping to address fuel poverty.
Retrofit stock improvements are, “key considerations with all proposals at the moment,” also adding grid resilience and asset protection EPC as key factors to be considered.
Jamie said: “The actual understanding of contractors, consultants and clients, is growing. I think that the increase of collaboration, sharing of knowledge, with routes like retrofitting, is a big opportunity.”