London faces an acute housing crisis. The need for solutions is intensifying, but the debate on how to tackle this crisis is becoming increasingly polarised. Ahead of the 2020 Mayoral election, this project sought to revitalise the debate on London’s housing crisis and build consensus around principles for intervention and sustainable solutions.

There are simply not enough homes in London; the delivery of new homes has failed to keep pace with the needs of a growing population. While the Mayor of London has set ambitious house building targets (66,000 homes per annum from 2019 onwards), delivery levels are likely to fall significantly below this target, with some indicators suggesting that a sharp slowdown is on its way. The gap between need and supply is particularly wide for affordable housing: in 2016/17, 41,400 net new homes were built in London, but only 7,000 were affordable, leaving a shortfall of around 35,600 against targets.

These housing challenges are clearly of growing concern to Londoners. 81 per cent of Londoners agree that housing in London is ‘in crisis’. With the mayoral election taking place in 2020, this project sought to develop and promote new approaches and alliances to tackle London’s significant, but not insurmountable, housing challenges.

Centre for London hosted a series of roundtable events with stakeholders from key groups in this space, including house builders, academics, campaign groups and policy-makers. These roundtable discussions covered some of London’s most significant housing challenges.

Alongside these roundtables, we also conducted secondary research to inform a series of four discussion papers on these topics, which can be read below.

• Trust, design and community engagement
• Land and planning
• Tenure and affordability
• Finance and delivery

These findings will help to inform the Centre for London’s housing manifesto, which will be published in the autumn and will provide policy recommendations for the mayoral candidates ahead of the 2020 election.