{"id":799783,"date":"2026-03-02T21:11:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T21:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/799783\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T21:11:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T21:11:28","slug":"mayor-urged-to-tackle-disconnect-over-housing-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/799783\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor urged to tackle disconnect over housing design"},"content":{"rendered":"

The London Assembly Planning and Regeneration Committee<\/a> published a letter today (2 March) warning the mayor of a \u2018disconnect\u2019 between the type of developments Londoners want to see in their neighbourhoods and those that are being delivered (see below).<\/p>\n

Written by committee chair James Small-Edwards, the letter pointed to public polling and visual surveys highlighted by Robert Kwolek from Create Streets, who was among the experts to give evidence during the Better Design for London<\/a> panel meeting in December.<\/p>\n

Kwolek claimed that 70 to 80 per cent of respondents prefer \u2018human-scale\u2019 buildings with \u2018coherent frontages\u2019 which are in keeping with an area\u2019s local character. People, he said, also expressed a preference for traditional designs over those making an \u2018impersonal statement\u2019.<\/p>\n

In the letter to the mayor, the committee argued that failing to back the kind of design that draws the broadest approval risks \u2018fuelling opposition, increasing delays and undermining delivery\u2019 of the government\u2019s housing targets.<\/p>\n

The letter reads: \u2018Traditional buildings have the features that people are interested in: nice materials, some ornament, variety in a pattern.<\/p>\n

\u2018You can get the same features with modern buildings, but we tend not to see those buildings being built.\u2019<\/p>\n

The letter acknowledges that some contemporary designs do employ \u2018these popular features\u2019, citing as examples the 2025 Stirling Prize-winning Appleby Blue Almshouse<\/a> by Witherford Watson Mann, and the winner of the 2021 Neave Brown award, McGrath Road<\/a> by Peter Barber Architects.<\/p>\n

The document also quoted mayor design advocate Holly Lewis, who suggested during the committee meeting that \u2018most Londoners do not feel they are shaping the future of London\u2019, and Lucy Bush from cross-party think-tank Demos, who said there was \u2018a great appetite to get involved in placemaking, which is not currently being met\u2019.<\/p>\n

Small-Edwards said: \u2018Londoners are not anti-development, they just want to be engaged early and see homes built that they find visually appealing.<\/p>\n

\u2018If we are to deliver 880,000 new homes over the next decade, we must close the gap between what Londoners want and what is getting built. Embedding popular design principles and meaningful early engagement will be essential to maintaining public confidence and delivering the homes our city needs.\u2019<\/p>\n

In response to the findings, the letter calls for the London Plan Housing Design Standards to be updated to reflect the public\u2019s design preferences.<\/p>\n

It also recommends a greater use of borough-wide design codes developed with representative, paid community participation, as well as the introduction of structured early-stage engagement requirements for major schemes.<\/p>\n

The mayor is set to review development and growth policies in the capital in the London Plan update, which will be published this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Source:Morley von Sternberg<\/p>\n

Peter Barber Architects\u2019 McGrath Road scheme was hailed as an exemplar in<\/p>\n

Comment<\/p>\n

Sally Lewis, founding director, Stitch Architects, and practice principal, Broadway Malyan<\/strong><\/p>\n

I read James Small-Edwards\u2019 letter to the mayor with interest. There is much to agree with \u2013 any decent architect strives to create buildings with coherent frontages, contextual materials and clear block structures. But this letter\u2019s premise is that \u2018popular\u2019 design is also \u2018human scaled\u2019 with \u2018traditional forms\u2019. This implies there is no local appetite for any building in London that is larger or taller than, say, four to six storeys. Of course there isn\u2019t! Of course, people will prefer smaller new buildings in their local neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

But where does that leave us with our increasingly out-of-reach housing targets? London is hardly building. Housing schemes stall before they get anywhere close to a democratic planning process or discussions about design. The few major projects that do emerge through ever-present viability challenges are inevitably tall by necessity.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Of course people will prefer smaller new buildings, but London is hardly building\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There is some comfort in the recommendation for councils to create design codes working with a broad range of local residents who are paid for their time. The key here is to ensure that these local residents are young people who will be the beneficiaries of new homes, not middle-aged homeowners who are concerned about keeping their neighbourhoods unchanged. This is a moment in time when we should be engaging the Londoners of the future and empowering the increasingly disenfranchised younger generations, who may even welcome an explanation about why hardly any homes are being built.<\/p>\n

The housing crisis is everyone\u2019s business now and should be the starting point for any discussion about design. If we want more homes in London, we need to swing the conversation away from building heights and start interrogating the wider benefits offered by new development: providing affordable homes, making great streets, creating parks and safe spaces for all. That\u2019s where design really matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The London Assembly Planning and Regeneration Committee published a letter today (2 March) warning the mayor of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,231966,4022,77,25229,52605,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-799783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-create-streets","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-mayor-of-london","14":"tag-traditional-architecture","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116161641698186209","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799783","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=799783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}