The South London council’s local plan review will slow down development, reduce affordable housing and exacerbate London’s housing crisis, Worrall argues
Christopher Worrall is a housing columnist for LFF. He is on the Executive Committee of the Labour Housing Group, Co-Host of the Priced Out Podcast, and Chair of the Local Government and Housing Member Policy Group of the Fabian Society.
Wandsworth Council’s latest Local Plan review is a disastrous affront to London’s desperate need for more homes.
It is a regressive, myopic, and fundamentally self-defeating approach to planning that prioritises theoretical purity over practical housing delivery.
Instead of aligning with the broader vision of the London Plan and the Mayor’s ambitious (yet still insufficient) housing targets, Wandsworth has opted for an ideological roadblock that will slow down development, reduce affordable housing, and exacerbate London’s housing crisis.
This is a lamentation from those who want to build more homes. Wandsworth has once again proved itself as a bureaucratic stronghold of NIMBY obstructionism masquerading as progressivism.
An affront to affordable housing delivery
At the heart of this failure is Wandsworth’s decision to set an affordable housing threshold at 45%, rather than the 35% benchmark outlined in the London Plan 2021. This might sound like a laudable attempt to squeeze more affordability out of developers, but it will do the exact opposite.
The threshold approach in the London Plan was carefully calibrated to balance viability and delivery—ensuring that housing projects actually get built while embedding affordability into the system. The data speaks for itself: the Mayor’s approach has already led to a significant increase in affordable housing provision, with 84% of strategic applications delivering at least 35% affordable housing, compared to just 53% in 2018.
Wandsworth’s decision to unilaterally increase the threshold to 45% is not just economically unviable—it is actively harmful.
Their own viability assessments show that for most sites, this level of affordable housing is simply not feasible. As a result, instead of following the Fast Track Route (FTR), developers will be forced into long, expensive viability negotiations, leading to:
Delays in housing delivery
Higher costs for developers, which will be passed on to renters and buyers
Lower actual affordable housing delivery due to a broken viability process
It’s a classic case of performative policymaking: a flashy, progressive-sounding target that achieves nothing but stagnation.
The Fast Track Route: Gutted by Bureaucracy
The Fast Track Route (FTR) was introduced to accelerate housing delivery while ensuring affordability. The entire point of the policy is to eliminate unnecessary viability assessments, thereby speeding up approvals and getting homes built faster. It’s a pragmatic solution to a supply-side problem.
Yet Wandsworth, in a baffling act of self-sabotage, has decided to impose late-stage viability reviews on FTR projects—something explicitly opposed by the London Plan. This extra layer of bureaucracy will only discourage developers from using the FTR, thereby defeating its entire purpose.
If Wandsworth cared about getting homes built quickly, it would follow the established evidence and support the 35% FTR model. Instead, it has opted for a politically convenient but practically ruinous policy that will reduce certainty for developers, delay approvals, and shrink the overall housing pipeline.
Build to Rent: Arbitrary Restrictions That Stifle Growth
Build to Rent (BTR) is one of the most effective tools for rapidly delivering high-quality, professionally managed rental housing. Yet, instead of facilitating growth, Wandsworth’s Local Plan introduces an arbitrary and restrictive affordability formula—mandating that 70% of the affordable units in BTR schemes be social rented housing.
This deviates from the London Plan’s well-established model, which balances affordability across income levels by including a mix of social rent, London Living Rent, and Discounted Market Rent. By insisting on a narrow definition of affordability, Wandsworth is shrinking the potential pool of BTR developers willing to invest in the borough, leading to fewer rental homes overall.
Viability Testing: A Transparent Exercise in Policy Failure
The viability assessment supporting this plan is a study in wishful thinking. It openly acknowledges that the proposed 45% affordable housing threshold is unviable in most scenarios—especially for private, non-industrial sites.
This means that either:
1. Developers will abandon projects entirely, leading to even fewer homes built.
2. Developers will negotiate endlessly on viability grounds, delaying projects for years.
3. Wandsworth will quietly approve schemes with lower affordability percentages anyway, undermining their own policy while pretending to stand firm.
None of these scenarios lead to more homes getting built efficiently—which should be the entire purpose of a Local Plan.
One to note for the parliamentary select committee on Land Value Capture, whose members should take note of this incredible display of housing supply destroying incompetence.
A Clear Pattern of Housing Obstruction
Wandsworth’s policies do not exist in a vacuum. This is part of a broader pattern of local councils across London and the UK blocking, delaying, and obstructing housing growth under the guise of affordability or community interest.
It’s the same NIMBY playbook we’ve seen time and again:
Set unrealistic affordability targets that developers cannot meet.
Introduce extra bureaucratic hurdles that slow down approvals.
Ignore economic realities about land values and development costs.
Appease vocal anti-housing residents who oppose new homes at any cost.
All of this leads to a worsening housing crisis, where fewer homes get built, demand outstrips supply, and prices continue to spiral out of reach.
Thanks to Sadiq Khan and Jules Pipe, There’s Hope for Change
Wandsworth’s obstructive planning policies would have been a disaster for housing delivery—if not for the intervention of Sadiq Khan and Jules Pipe, who have stepped in to demand a course correction. Their leadership in challenging this misguided approach is a welcome relief for Londoners who desperately need more homes, not more red tape.
Their insistence that Wandsworth align with the London Plan’s proven strategies is exactly the kind of decisive action required to keep London moving forward. By pushing back against these regressive policies, they are ensuring that more homes—including more affordable homes—get built.
This is what leadership looks like in the face of a housing crisis: not pandering to obstructionists but standing up for the people who need homes the most. Londoners should be grateful for their intervention, and now it’s up to Wandsworth to listen, change course, and embrace a housing policy that delivers.
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