G15 joins calls for urgent investment in new housing to avoid a national downturn

The G15, Mayor of London, London Councils and other leaders from across the capital’s housebuilding sector have today delivered a new blueprint for action on housebuilding to boost the supply of new homes.

The London Housing Delivery Taskforce, which was reconvened in the summer, has agreed on 29 proposals to safeguard the delivery of thousands of new homes and ensure the long-term viability of the capital’s housebuilding sector.

The “joint position statement”, which has been sent to Secretary of State Michael Gove, sets out the most critical challenges facing housing developers in the capital and some of the major interventions that both the government and City Hall can take to rectify them.

Read the full joint position statement (PDF).

G15 Chair, Fiona Fletcher-Smith, said:

“Housing associations are facing very tough decisions in the face of high interest rates, cost inflation and wider uncertainty. We are prioritising investment in existing homes and services, but have had to slow down the development of much-needed new homes.

“We have to get the sector building again in order to meet the scale of today’s housing crisis, but without long-term thinking, certainty and political commitment that is just not possible.

“The recommendations set out today by the London Housing Delivery Taskforce would tackle many of the key issues holding us back. This would not only enable us to get building again and start addressing the chronic shortage of homes, but it would have a much wider economic boost for London and beyond.”