Yahoo Finance Sadiq Khan blighting London’s skyline with luxury high rises, report claims
Sadiq Khan has been accused of allowing London’s skyline to become blighted with high rise buildings that have exacerbated the capital’s housing crisis.
Since coming to power in 2016, the London Mayor has presided over the construction of more tall buildings in the capital than his two predecessors put together.
There are 22,000 housing units in some 68 residential skyscrapers standing at more than 111m tall that have been built in London this century. But only 6pc are classed as affordable housing and 0.3pc as social housing, a report by the think tank Policy Exchange found.
It comes despite Mr Khan’s pledge to build more than 40,000 new council homes by the end of the decade to tackle the housing shortage if he is re-elected as mayor, doubling his previous commitment to build 20,000 affordable homes between 2018 and 2030.
The report also found that while all three London mayors have had an “enormous” impact on tall buildings in London, Mr Khan had “significantly outstripped” his predecessors when it came to supporting high rise developments.
Under Mr Khan’s tenure, 41 buildings over 111m high have been built, compared to 16 under Boris Johnson and 12 under Ken Livingstone.
Ike Ijeh, who authored the report, said the proliferation of high rise buildings, mostly of luxury apartments, had made the capital’s housing crisis worse.
He added: “Not only has London been saddled with highly contentious building types to which neither its planning system or historic fabric is particularly well suited, they have also helped solidify social inequality and added intense development pressure onto its suburbs, areas previously never considered appropriate for high-rises.”
The vast majority of planning applications are left to London boroughs. However, the 2008 Mayor of London Order gives the mayor statutory powers to approve or reject certain schemes regardless of the borough’s decision.
The powers apply to schemes over 30m tall, that include 150 residential units, and are earmarked to be built on green belt or metropolitan land. The powers do not cover the City of London.
Mr Ijeh added that as many tall building proposals pass this threshold, saying the mayor has “significant powers to shape London’s tall building landscape” and that this “regularly sets the mayor on a collision course with the boroughs”.
Boris Johnson used the powers to overturn planning refusals for Carrara and Valencia Towers in Islington and Consort Place skyscraper in Tower Hamlets.
Mr Khan has also pushed high rise projects through. In 2021, Hillingdon Council refused planning permission for a mixed-use development with buildings up to 11 storeys high on the basis that the scheme was outside an area the council had identified as appropriate for tall buildings.
Mr Khan overturned the decision. The council took the case to the High Court but its appeal was rejected.
Barbara Weiss, an architect and co-founder of the Skyline Campaign, said the capital’s skyline had become a “chaotic jumble” of high rise buildings.
She added: “In ten years, London’s skyline has been transformed forever by an unrecognisable chaotic jumble of mediocre skyscrapers, bunched together into erratic ‘clusters’ that overshadow all the capital’s most cherished landmarks.”
Last month, Michael Gove, the Housing Secretary, ordered Mr Khan to fix London’s broken planning system to address the “chronic under delivery” of new homes in the capital.
New home completions in London hit a nine-year low of 33,712 last year, according to official figures. That number must rise to 62,300 per year to meet growing demand, Mr Gove warned.
Mr Khan is the favourite to win the London mayoral election on May 2, which would secure him another four years in office.
Dean Russell, Conservative MP for Watford, said: “In urban centres, councils are blotting out the ‘blue belt’ making clear views of the sky an impossibility.
“For most communities the decisions on the height of tall towers are made in council chambers whilst its residents have to live with these monolithic structures overshadowing their lives.”
Actor Griff Rhys Jones, president of conservation charity the Victorian Society, who wrote the foreword to the report, said: “London is particularly plagued by silly aggrandisement. Many of the latest, high-rise follies have all the tacky appeal of a footballer’s kitchen.”
He added that tall buildings only played a “performative” role in addressing the capital’s housing crisis.
The Mayor of London was approached for comment.
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