{"id":1161022,"date":"2026-08-21T10:16:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T10:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1161022\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T10:16:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T10:16:26","slug":"london-is-building-too-many-small-flats-instead-of-family-homes-new-report-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1161022\/","title":{"rendered":"London is building too many small flats instead of family homes, new report claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long-serving Conservative on London Assembly warns families are \u201cleaving the capital en masse\u201d thanks to current City Hall policies, reports Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"LondonLondon Assembly member Andrew Boff (LDRS image)<\/p>\n

Developers are incentivised to build too many one and two-bedroom properties in London instead of the family-sized homes that the capital desperately needs, a senior London Assembly member has claimed in a new report.<\/p>\n

City Hall\u2019s government-set target of building 88,000 homes every year has prompted Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan to prioritise speed over need, according to senior Conservative Assembly member Andrew Boff.<\/p>\n

In a new report, entitled Uncrowded Houses, he explains that the current focus on \u201cunits\u201d over \u201cbedrooms\u201d has led to unnecessary high rise developments proliferating across the capital \u2013 and warned that more families could be forced to leave the capital if the mayor doesn\u2019t change his strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really, really worrying,\u201d Boff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLondon\u2019s population fell for the first time in decades last year, and families are leaving the capital en masse because they cannot afford the housing they need.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeanwhile, planning changes to enable developers to bulldoze green spaces, and circumvent local councils \u2013 elected by residents \u2013 to put up developments look set to throw up tens of thousands of unsuitable properties which will not solve the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to stop building these high rises and start building the family homes that Londoners really need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year it emerged that just 3% of all homes built through City Hall\u2019s Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) between 2016 and 2025 had four or more bedrooms. The vast majority \u2013 78% \u2013 were studios, one-beds or two-bedroom properties.<\/p>\n

An accompanying report from the London Assembly\u2019s housing committee suggested that developers were not being given the appropriate grants to motivate them to build larger homes. The report recommends reform of the system to ensure a \u201cvariable grant model\u201d which could allocate money per bedroom or person housed instead of per unit.<\/p>\n

Other measures suggested include more effective management of existing stock, including incentivising people with extra bedrooms to downsize, and target acquisitions of larger homes for use by councils or the mayor.<\/p>\n

Building larger homes would not only relieve overcrowded families, but free up properties further down the chain, the report said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a suitably large home becomes available, it often releases a chain of moves: a family exits temporary accommodation, another household moves into the vacated smaller property, and overall pressure across multiple segments of the housing stock is reduced,\u201d Boff\u2019s report says.<\/p>\n

\u201cConversely, the absence of larger homes creates a bottleneck that prevents movement and intensifies overcrowding.\u201d<\/p>\n

His comments echo Anna Clarke, director of policy and public affairs at The Housing Forum, who told the Centre for London\u2019s Housing Summit earlier this year: \u201cWe\u2019re rather too obsessed with counting the number of units, which pushes the pressure to build small housing. We\u2019ve got an awful lot of overcrowded households in London.\u201d<\/p>\n

The draft London Plan, which is currently undergoing public consultation, acknowledges that \u201cfamily-sized housing accounts for a much larger proportion of need in affordable tenures than in market homes\u201d.<\/p>\n

It takes into account the findings of the London-wide Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA), which says the need for affordable, larger homes is \u201cacute\u201d as families with children face the highest overcrowding rates of any group of people, at 16.8%.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year a report from the London Assembly\u2019s economy, culture and skills committee found that number of children living in the capital has been declining at a faster rate than anywhere else in the UK since the early 2010s. Assembly members suggested that serious financial and practical barriers, including the cost of childcare and housing, played a major role in families moving out of London.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Khan told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): \u201cTackling London\u2019s housing crisis is one of the mayor\u2019s top priorities and City Hall is working with London boroughs, housing associations, developers and others to deliver more homes of all tenures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe draft new London Plan aims to deliver a range of different sized homes to meet Londoners\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor remains committed to improving access to good-quality green spaces for Londoners and has been clear that the next London Plan will continue to provide strong protections for the capital\u2019s strategically important green spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read Boff\u2019s report Uncrowded Homes:
Visit<\/strong> cityhallconservatives.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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More Information about donations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long-serving Conservative on London Assembly warns families are \u201cleaving the capital en masse\u201d thanks to current City Hall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1161023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,26387,527,393,4884,6333,257,16130,12717,16,15],"class_list":["post-1161022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-britain","tag-city-hall","tag-conservative-party","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-housing","tag-london","tag-london-assembly","tag-planning","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117132986888781737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1161023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}