Housing targets for London Thames Gateway keep rising. But a focus on quantity not quality means families lose out says the chief executive of the London Thames Gateway Partnership

Ambitions for housing output are increasing in the London part of the Thames Gateway. A few years ago, it was proposed that 47,000 new homes was a reasonable target for the period 2001-2016. This target has been steadily increasing and has now more than doubled, although it is for a longer time period.

These increasing targets and ambitions have been fuelled by improving public transport and the determination to promote more intense development around transport nodes to boost efficiency and sustainability. Density of development is also increasing, as is the planned availability of land for housing that was previously designated for industry/employment.

Housing output is led by the private sector and registered social landlords create partnerships with housebuilders to produce a mix of market and affordable homes. These partnerships do work, but the nature of the housing product is clearly changing.

What is striking in large parts of London Thames Gateway is the predominance in development of one and two-bed flats. It is as if there has been a significant over-reaction to the increasing number of smaller households. Many of these flats are bought by investors for the buy-to-let market. The revival of the private rented sector is useful but the scatter of ownership emphasises the importance of good local management.

We know from experience in Europe that higher-density flats can and do work for families. But they have to be reasonably sized, designed to be spacious and flexible, have good sized balconies, require good performance from local management and a well maintained public realm.

What we get too often here are small flats with insufficient commitment to address families’ requirements. Local authorities are becoming increasingly firm about family housing provision in their planning policies but, if there is unbalanced emphasis on housing numbers rather than the nature of the output, we simply won’t create sustainable communities in the Gateway.

Eric Sorenson is chief executive of the London Thames Gateway Partnership

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