Croydon believes it can exceed housing targets laid down by Boris Johnson’s London Plan, the Develop Croydon Conference was told.
Jo Negrini, executive director for place, was responding to a question from Paul Finch, editorial director of Architects Journal, in a panel discussion for a Made In Croydon plenary session in which he asked whether housebuilding targets were ambitious enough.
“We are the biggest borough and we’ve got the biggest capacity,” said Ms Negrini.
“So all of those figures we have quoted are based on the Opportunity Area Planning Framework, not actually what’s happening.
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Great capacity: Jo Negrini during the Made In Croydon plenary
“Knowing that we had to pitch this to treasury that over and above the OAPF, we are actually exceeding that in terms of what’s coming through the pipeline in the centre of Croydon. So in terms of ambition we have got a lot more capacity than is stated.”
Ms Negrini said that rather than the 1,400 new homes a year mentioned in the London Plan, Croydon had in fact set a target of 1,900 in its latest local plan.
“Just in the same way as people are wanting more commercial space within their developments, we’re looking at applications coming back for more and more housing units so everyone is recognising that we have a lot more housing capacity than we’re stating,” she added.
“The other key thing for us is where is the capacity? We’ve got a very interesting borough in that we’ve got a very tight north in the borough and its Victorian nature; a mega metropolitan centre; and then we’ve got literally suburbs in the south of the borough. So there’s a lot of additional capacity in the south for us to really exploit.”
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Be ambitious: Lucy Owen of the Greater London Authority
On behalf of the GLA, Lucy Owen, head of area for South London for the housing and land directorate, said: “In terms of ambition we would always encourage councils, anybody, to be as ambitious as possible and look to overachieve targets.
“The targets we’ve set in the London Plan have been based on a lot of strong evidence and 49,000 a year is what we think is necessary to meet London’s needs, but of course we want people to be more ambitious.
“I would agree with Jo that in Croydon there is a lot of opportunity, both in the town centre but also outside. Croydon can be an area for families and young people offering different tenures and different types of housing.
“There is a gap between the number of homes we think we need and the amount of land we think is available at the moment which is why we work with boroughs like Croydon to make as much land available as possible to bridge that gap. There’s population growth in London and we need to meet it.
PHOTOS: IAN STRATTON – PHOTOGRAPHY365.COM