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Housing emergency measures risk long-term harm without fixing affordability
London’s housing “emergency measures” risk long-term harm without fixing affordability
As London’s Mayor advances “emergency measures” to boost housebuilding, we examine why relaxing standards and contributions risks long-term harm without solving the capital’s affordability crisis.
The Mayor of London’s proposed “emergency measures” warrant careful public scrutiny. Framed by Sadiq Khan and City Hall as short-term interventions to unlock stalled development, the proposals risk weakening environmental protections and housing standards while failing to address the structural causes of London’s housing crisis.
The measures are the subject of two public consultations (which closed 22 January 2026), covering changes to London Plan guidance and the Government’s proposed London Emergency Housing Package. CPRE London has submitted responses to both consultations (links below), raising concerns about affordability, environmental quality, housing standards, and the long-term consequences of temporary policy relaxations.
Developed by the Mayor in collaboration with central government, the proposals include changes to London Plan guidance, a new time-limited planning route with reduced affordable housing requirements, and temporary relief from borough-level Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) charges for larger schemes.
Taken together, they represent a significant shift in London’s planning framework.
Affordability without foundations
Decades of policy choices have allowed land values to spiral, inflating prices well beyond the reach of ordinary incomes. This has led to calls to compromise building standards and to reduce contributions to social infrastructure – the idea being that this reduces costs for builders – which the authorities and developers say will make building more ‘viable.’
The (time-limited) proposals significantly lower affordable housing requirements when compared to the London Plan. The problem is, these reductions in affordable housing, infrastructure contributions, or design standards simply protect land values rather than improve affordability or change the speed at which houses are built. Without addressing these structural dynamics, measures intended to unlock delivery risk weakening standards while leaving the underlying problem untouched.
For communities, this risks development with fewer affordable homes, reduced investment in local infrastructure, and lower standards, without the promised improvement in access to housing.
Historically, affordability has been achieved through providing social housing, rent regulation, and active control of land values, rather than through deregulated market delivery alone.
Without tackling land value dynamics and structural issues (not enough social housing and lack rent controls in particular), the Mayor of London’s emergency measures risk lasting damage while delivering little lasting benefit.
And while presented as exceptional and time-limited, the proposed changes risk normalising reduced expectations and weakening public confidence in the planning system.
Eroding housing quality and sustainable transport provision
Removing key housing design standards, including guidance on dual-aspect homes and limits on ‘dwellings per core’, raises very significant concerns about daylight, ventilation, overheating, overall liveability and safety. These standards are fundamental to healthy homes, particularly in a warming climate. And measures introduced as temporary may become embedded through precedent or later extension.
Reducing cycle parking standards may undermine sustainable transport objectives, particularly in parts of outer London where the need to reduce the number of short journeys made by car is greatest. Supporting a reduction in car-dependency is essential to reduce congestion, air pollution and road danger, and the disproportionate impacts these have on lower-income households and those already facing health inequalities.
The proposed temporary relief from borough-level Community Infrastructure Levy would also reduce funding for local infrastructure, including green space, active travel, and environmental mitigation, at precisely the point when development pressures are increasing.
- We have written elsewhere about why the ‘build baby build’ narrative, as a means to tackle the housing crisis, does not add up, emphasising, among other things, that planning permission is in place for 300,000 homes in London which remain unbuilt.
