Southwark is the last remaining London council to demand delivery of social housing in its planning policy documents

24 January 2020

Southwark Council has committed to aiming for 50 percent of any new housing to be social or intermediate rent as part of its New Southwark Plan (NSP), which has now been submitted.

The council is the only remaining London council to demand delivery of social housing, not just affordable homes, as part of its planning policies.
The NSP is Southwark Council’s blueprint for future planning and developments and lays out what and where it wants to see areas for, for example,  housing, green space, offices and retail.

Cllr Johnson Situ, Cabinet Member for Growth, Development and Planning, said: “In Southwark we are ambitious in our response to the housing crisis with a bold target to deliver 2,355 new homes every year, to match our target of building 11,000 new council homes by 2043. Ensuring developers are providing as much affordable housing as possible, particularly social housing is a fundamental part of our approach to responding to the housing crisis. Our minimum requirement is 35 percent for social and intermediate homes, split 25 percent and ten percent respectively, but together with our new council homes programme we aim for half of all new homes to be social or intermediate in all future developments.”

The NSP also confirms the council aims to create 47,000 new office jobs over the next 20 years and is taking an innovative approach to retain as much space for small businesses and employment as possible as well as creating a workspace policy that requires 10 percent of all business space to be affordable and existing businesses affected by development are relocated into affordable premises.

It also wants to protect conservation areas, encourage creative and vibrant uses in the borough’s 800 railway arches and seeks to expand and enhance the borough’s own cycle route network and walking networks in collaboration with TfL.

As part of the council’s pledge to help tackle the Climate emergency, the NSP will demand all developments reduce their carbon emissions and retain all Metropolitan Open Land, Borough Open Land and other Open Space as well ask work to create more open and green spaces.

Page last updated: 24 January 2020