TfL on track to hit housing targets

Transport for London is on course to deliver ambitious housing targets at a time when local authorities are struggling to meet their own goals, according to its head of housing strategy. Speaking on a panel at the Capital West London Growth Summit, Robbie Erbmann said: “TfL owns 5,700 acres of land so, like it or not, we are a property company. We are on the hook now to start delivering 10,000 homes by 2021, with around 6,000 of those in west London. “We are on target as far as our forecasts are going. Our target this year is to be on site with about 800 and we will do better than this. We are confident. Our development team has gone from five people to 100 over the past few years. Our design team is ready and our development partners are in place. We know it’s a challenge but we’ve resourced up to meet it.” Local authorities and the government itself are struggling to meet their own housing targets. Harrow Council is planning to challenge the government over its 10-year housing target. The draft London Plan has set out housing delivery targets for each London borough, with Harrow expected to deliver 13,920 homes over the next decade and an average of 1,392 each year. Harrow Council leader Graham Henson said on the panel: “We will challenge the target and try to reduce. It is quite large. We are currently meeting the annual target but we are running out of land to build on. “We have high-quality green belt and there are some areas we could build on but we would need to have an open debate about this. We haven’t had this debate as there have been other challenges nationally so this has come off the radar.” Henson added that the council is also in talks with TfL. “We are talking to TfL about what we can do on the sites in Harrow that TfL owns but that’s only 500 homes and we haven’t seen how high it is going to go. “We want to maintain that world-class design to produce buildings you actually want to see in 40 or 50 years’ time, rather than something that shows up as an eyesore that you wish you’d never built, so that is a challenge in itself.” James Bridgewood, regional programme manager for One Public Estate, a partnership between the LGA and Office of Cabinet Property, said the government was on course to miss its own target of 160,000 homes by 2020. “Everyone knows that’s not going to be met. I think we need to make a connection between central government targets and local government targets and find out where actually is that opportunity.” To send feedback, e-mail anna.ward@egi.co.uk or tweet @annaroxelana or @estatesgazette