Henry Higgins: How to fix London’s broken planning system
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.
Cllr Henry Higgins is the Chairman of Planning in the London Borough of Hillingdon.
It is no consolation to say that 150 or even 100 years ago, in London, we built some of the most beautiful and practical streets of houses that the world has ever seen and which are still the envy of anybody: not just of people looking for a house here, but of people of most cities in the world. We seem to have lost the ability to do that.
We have national and a citywide recognition of the need to keep building more houses and places to live, but we struggle to fulfil that clear purpose. In some boroughs, government policy requires that we build as many as 2,000 new homes each year, but such targets are rarely, if ever, achieved.
There are practical reasons why these failings happen and we need to understand them.
It is a builder who builds a house, not a politician. People and politicians may want houses, but the prospect and the project have to be practical for the builder who will do the work.
For them, that means:
A space to build.
Preparing the design and architecture.
The ability to connect to services, like water, drains, gas, electricity, roads and so on.
Employing the skilled labour and sourcing the materials.
The approval of the local community and understanding their needs.
Finding a customer who will buy the completed work.
Engaging in whatever the legal and formal requirements are.
Funds to carry out all that expensive work while it is in progress.
An investment in which they will undertake financial risk, but that makes sense for them and meets their own criteria for approval.
We often describe a person, or an enterprise, who engages in these in the successful pursuit of these activities at scale, ‘a developer’
The motivations for building houses are quite simple to understand
People want places to live, go to work, raise their families and enjoy living their lives in one of the best cities in the world.
Builders and developers want to participate in the architecture and quality of life in the city and make good return on the investment they need to make.
Politicians want to build houses but they also need to protect people both from exploitation and unsafe conditions, and to make their contribution to the quality of life in London. They need to make sure public money is properly spent and to guard against unfair monopolies affecting the prices people pay.
For all three of these there is an abundance of understanding, desire and demand.
Politicians have a responsibility to play certain roles in all this. They have to take certain actions expeditiously and to be able to leave some things alone for builders and developers to do and for individual people and their families to decide.
Helping to identify those, and particularly, …
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.
Cllr Henry Higgins is the Chairman of Planning in the London Borough of Hillingdon.
It is no consolation to say that 150 or even 100 years ago, in London, we built some of the most beautiful and practical streets of houses that the world has ever seen and which are still the envy of anybody: not just of people looking for a house here, but of people of most cities in the world. We seem to have lost the ability to do that.
We have national and a citywide recognition of the need to keep building more houses and places to live, but we struggle to fulfil that clear purpose. In some boroughs, government policy requires that we build as many as 2,000 new homes each year, but such targets are rarely, if ever, achieved.
There are practical reasons why these failings happen and we need to understand them.
It is a builder who builds a house, not a politician. People and politicians may want houses, but the prospect and the project have to be practical for the builder who will do the work.
For them, that means:
A space to build.
Preparing the design and architecture.
The ability to connect to services, like water, drains, gas, electricity, roads and so on.
Employing the skilled labour and sourcing the materials.
The approval of the local community and understanding their needs.
Finding a customer who will buy the completed work.
Engaging in whatever the legal and formal requirements are.
Funds to carry out all that expensive work while it is in progress.
An investment in which they will undertake financial risk, but that makes sense for them and meets their own criteria for approval.
We often describe a person, or an enterprise, who engages in these in the successful pursuit of these activities at scale, ‘a developer’
The motivations for building houses are quite simple to understand
People want places to live, go to work, raise their families and enjoy living their lives in one of the best cities in the world.
Builders and developers want to participate in the architecture and quality of life in the city and make good return on the investment they need to make.
Politicians want to build houses but they also need to protect people both from exploitation and unsafe conditions, and to make their contribution to the quality of life in London. They need to make sure public money is properly spent and to guard against unfair monopolies affecting the prices people pay.
For all three of these there is an abundance of understanding, desire and demand.
Politicians have a responsibility to play certain roles in all this. They have to take certain actions expeditiously and to be able to leave some things alone for builders and developers to do and for individual people and their families to decide.
Helping to identify those, and particularly, …
Henry Higgins: How to fix London’s broken planning system
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.
Cllr Henry Higgins is the Chairman of Planning in the London Borough of Hillingdon.
It is no consolation to say that 150 or even 100 years ago, in London, we built some of the most beautiful and practical streets of houses that the world has ever seen and which are still the envy of anybody: not just of people looking for a house here, but of people of most cities in the world. We seem to have lost the ability to do that.
We have national and a citywide recognition of the need to keep building more houses and places to live, but we struggle to fulfil that clear purpose. In some boroughs, government policy requires that we build as many as 2,000 new homes each year, but such targets are rarely, if ever, achieved.
There are practical reasons why these failings happen and we need to understand them.
It is a builder who builds a house, not a politician. People and politicians may want houses, but the prospect and the project have to be practical for the builder who will do the work.
For them, that means:
A space to build.
Preparing the design and architecture.
The ability to connect to services, like water, drains, gas, electricity, roads and so on.
Employing the skilled labour and sourcing the materials.
The approval of the local community and understanding their needs.
Finding a customer who will buy the completed work.
Engaging in whatever the legal and formal requirements are.
Funds to carry out all that expensive work while it is in progress.
An investment in which they will undertake financial risk, but that makes sense for them and meets their own criteria for approval.
We often describe a person, or an enterprise, who engages in these in the successful pursuit of these activities at scale, ‘a developer’
The motivations for building houses are quite simple to understand
People want places to live, go to work, raise their families and enjoy living their lives in one of the best cities in the world.
Builders and developers want to participate in the architecture and quality of life in the city and make good return on the investment they need to make.
Politicians want to build houses but they also need to protect people both from exploitation and unsafe conditions, and to make their contribution to the quality of life in London. They need to make sure public money is properly spent and to guard against unfair monopolies affecting the prices people pay.
For all three of these there is an abundance of understanding, desire and demand.
Politicians have a responsibility to play certain roles in all this. They have to take certain actions expeditiously and to be able to leave some things alone for builders and developers to do and for individual people and their families to decide.
Helping to identify those, and particularly, …
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