Sarah Danman shares what we’ve been up to over the past 12 months

And just like that, 2024 is over!

It’s been a busy year for politics in London, the UK, and even internationally. At Centre for London, we’ve been proud to be part of it all, through our advocacy work, our London-centric commentary, our collaborative events, and our research into the greatest challenges facing our capital.

A snapshot of our impact this year

Our year in numbers:

• We welcomed over 500 delegates to our events.
• During the course of the year, we published 31 policy recommendations across four research reports.
• Over 40 expert speakers gave us their unique perspectives.
• We hosted 7 Chatham House roundtables for our London Network, bringing together London’s leaders for frank and thoughtful discussion.
• We collaborated with partners to host 10 participatory workshops across our two major conferences.
• More than 300 mentions in print media, alongside a series of high-profile broadcast appearances.

A turbulent year for politics

In May, Sadiq Khan won a third term as Mayor of London – as predicted in our polling with Savanta. This showed Khan led the polls with 42%. In fact, Khan won the election with 43.8% of the vote, making our polling the most accurate of the London Mayoral elections.

The General Election followed a couple of months later, with Labour winning a landslide victory over the incumbent Conservatives. While green belt policies and the promise of a new era for English devolution were well-received, Labour’s manifesto made almost no mention of specific regions, and in fact the word ‘London’ was used just once. Unfortunately, in some ways this narrative continued through to the government’s first few months, with no Minister for London appointed, and London still sat on the waiting list for a new integrated settlement following the release of the new English Devolution White Paper.

However, this next five years offers significant opportunity for renewal – the first time in which national government and the Mayor of London have been aligned politically in a decade. As the new national and mayoral government terms unfold, we’ll be keeping a close eye on how policy changes effect the capital.

Our work advocating for London

At Centre for London, we’re dedicated to making the case for the capital to Westminster.

In February, we published an open letter with our partner G15 to Michael Gove, then Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, asking him to take the housing crisis in London seriously, and spotlighting recommendations from our report Solving London’s Housing Crisis. The letter, alongside the government’s response, was published in the Guardian.

Our determination to shine a spotlight on London’s housing crisis paid off later in the year, with new Minister for Housing, Matthew Pennycook, asking us to submit a response to the government consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework in August. Planning reform is a crucial step towards kickstarting house building in the capital – we were pleased to see NPPF reform brought to the top of the new government’s agenda so quickly. But planning reform alone will not be enough to end the housing crisis. We are hopeful that, if the government want to meet their target of building 1.5 million homes by 2030, they will rally behind a wider strategic and financial plan for the housing market in 2025 – most importantly investing in affordable housebuilding.

Behind the scenes, we held a series of ongoing briefings with civil servants looking for fresh perspective about achieving London’s potential. We’ve also been advocating for our capital on an international level, discussing our recommendations for solving the housing crisis with Dutch civil servants, and sharing our policy research work with delegations from China Catalonia.

Researching new solutions for our capital

In March 2024, we published our report Rebooting London’s Economy, supported by our partner the City of London Corporation. The report outlines the need for a new local industrial strategy, to get our capital’s declining productivity back on track. Despite 15 years of stagnant productivity growth, our research shows that transforming London’s economy, and that of the UK, remains within reach. Devolution was the primary theme of the recommendations, calling for national government to devolve a series of decision-making and fiscal powers from the apprenticeship levy to council tax.

London is not an island – as we discussed in our report London and the Heathrow Region, published in May with the support of our partner the Heathrow Strategic Planning Group (HSPG). The report concludes that how the capital intersects with the wider South East is fundamental to creating a fair, successful city. Cross-boundary collaboration was found to be crucial, with TFL and the Met Police needing to work alongside strategic planning groups such as HSPG to align on policymaking.

Anticipating the current government’s renewed interest in devolution, in July we published an introductory briefing paper: Devolution in London: the unfinished story. The paper explored the urgent need for an updated devolution deal for London including greater financial powers in order for the capital to thrive.

Continuing to press for greater reform of the housing market, we published our report on London’s Social Housing Waiting Times in October. Our research discovered that Londoners are waiting years – if not decades – for social housing, and also identified a previously under-recognised need for improved data collection and analysis to guide policy, planning and housing delivery.

Convening the brightest minds in London

2024 saw us launch our first London Housing Summit in June, with the support of the Berkeley Group. The Summit brought together 150 guests to make practical progress on solving London’s housing crisis. It took advantage of the window of opportunity for change presented by this year’s Mayoral and national elections, inviting speakers and delegates to look to a brighter future. Building on this year’s success, we’ll be hosting our second London Housing Summit in the Spring of 2025. We are looking for sponsors to work with us on this influential  event, so please contact us about how you can get involved.

To delve into more in-depth discussions, we also hosted several more intimate events throughout 2024. At the Conservative Party Conference in September, we continued to press for change in the housing market, holding a panel discussion in partnership with L&Q. In February, we launched our report to a standing-room-only audience on London’s street clutter: Clutter and chaos: how to sort out central London’s streets

Members of The London Network participated in seven private roundtables throughout the year, where key London stakeholders helped us to set the capital’s policy agenda though discussion with London’s leaders. If you’d like to join our exclusive network in 2025, consider getting a seat at the table by becoming a member.

As ever, we ended 2024 on a high note, hosting our flagship London Conference in November. More than 200 delegates joined us to focus on the next five years for London, imagining the capital city we want to see by 2030. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, joined us on the day centring housing as the key issue requiring resolution in his next five years as Mayor.

What’s next?

We were delighted to launch our new five year strategy at the London Conference, which outlined our vision for London as an ascendant global city by 2030.

To ensure we work together on the issues that matter most for London and Londoners, our work will be guided by three strategic pillars and draw on design, innovation and people-centred research approaches to rapidly improve policymaking for London, focused on:

• Developing London: building a prosperous and thriving city, with more Londoners achieving a decent standard of living and participating fully in city life.
• Governing London: ensuring London is a capital in service to the UK and a competitive global city, with exemplar public services and world-class governance.
• Decarbonising London: driving our city to be a global leader in urban decarbonisation, fast approaching net positive on carbon and nature.

We’re looking forward to sharing more about our programmes and projects in 2025! If you’d like to play your part in improving London, our new strategy opens the door for unique opportunities to collaborate on innovative research or exciting events. Find out more about partnering with us.