Rory Stewart unveils masterplan for 250,000 new London homes using surplus TfL land

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Rory Stewart has promised to build 250,000 new London homes in five years
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Independent mayoral candidate Rory Stewart today promised London’s biggest affordable housing programme “in more than a generation” with 250,000 new homes built and ready to live in within five years.

Speaking exclusively to the Standard, he said his ambitious “just build it” plan would prioritise key workers such as nurses and teachers, young families and the elderly.

Mr Stewart, 47, condemned the record of Sadiq Khan on housing as “pathetic” but said his predecessors Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson had also failed to ramp up affordable housing delivery to levels that addressed the scale of London’s homes crisis.

He warned that without a massive increase in the scale of housebuilding, the capital will “start to die”.

The former Tory MP, who last year stood against Mr Johnson in the Tory leadership election, said if elected to lead City Hall in May he would immediately set up a Mayor’s Building Company — run by “serious hard-hitters” in industry rather than politicians.

This would be handed thousands of acres of surplus Transport for London land that could be used by private developers, housing associations and councils.

Mr Stewart said: “Public land is the untapped asset. There are 2,000 hectares of TfL land and a similar amount owned by Network Rail, before you even get on to public bodies like the NHS.

“The most obvious place to unlock it is TfL and there I have one fundamental proposal: instead of selling it off to the highest bidder, you treat it as a public asset, retain control and make it available for development for free.

“You then immediately reduce by 30 per cent the cost of building housing. TfL are trying to generate £3.5 billion by selling land but the model is unsustainable asset stripping and very short term.”

TfL already has its own plans to release 300 acres of land for development schemes leading to 10,000 new homes, although progress has been slower than expected.

Mr Stewart said he would find an extra £200 million for the TfL budget that would enable transport bosses to make up revenue lost from land sales.

He also plans to launch a review of “stalled” sites that have planning consent for up to 200,000 homes but where work has not made progress.

His pledges come the day before the publication of latest GLA affordable housing figures are expected to show that the Mayor is on track to hit his target of work starting on at least 17,000 new homes in the current financial year.

Mr Stewart said under his approach residents would be involved in schemes “at the outset” to prevent buildings going up that nobody wanted to live in.

He said: “You get residents in at an early stage and spend three days going through what they want to see and you’d be amazed, a clear idea of what they want would emerge.”

Rents in the homes would be linked to income rather than market rates.

He added: “Nine Elms is a classic example of the madness. Public bodies have been trying to extract too much money for land in exchange for builders being allowed to put up buildings that didn’t resemble what residents were originally promised.”

Mr Stewart said his model could also be rolled out to help young professionals struggling to clamber on the housing ladder and stuck in expensive, private rented homes.

He also said he has begun talks with executives at developers, housing associations and long-term investors.

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