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Kath Scanlon

Christine Whitehead

Blanc,F

January 11th, 2018

A Sustainable Increase in London’s Housing Supply?

1 comment

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Kath Scanlon

Christine Whitehead

Blanc,F

January 11th, 2018

A Sustainable Increase in London’s Housing Supply?

1 comment

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Click on the picture to access the full report.

On 11 January 2018, LSE London launched the final report of the third of three Knowledge Exchange and Impact projects aimed at fostering debate between academics, practitioners, and government. The report, entitled A sustainable increase in London’s housing supply? was authored by Kath Scanlon, Christine Whitehead, and Fanny Blanc; click here to access the full report. The series that spawned this project started in September 2014 when the scale of the housing problem, and its extreme nature in London, was only just beginning to be realised.

The aim of all three projects has been to identify ways of accelerating residential development in London, to monitor how the system has been changing and to offer suggestions to policy makers and practitioners about how to encourage the positive and to overcome the barriers.

The approach is that of ‘knowledge exchange’ rather than traditional research. We have brought together expertise from across the spectrum — officials at all levels of government, developers both private and public, housing advocates, planners, and many others to debate and exchange ideas.

The programme has included:

  • Round table discussions
  • Consultations on the Housing White Paper; the election manifestos and the draft London Housing Strategy;
  • Site visits to places showing interesting innovations in for example construction methods, land assembly, pace of development, tenure mix
  • One-to-one interviews/conversations
  • Presentations at conferences and industry events
  • Comparative discussions with experts from other countries

The entire archive of the project can be found on this website, which includes blog posts, reports, presentations, podcasts, films, etc. This latest report emphasises our findings from these discussions and interactions but it also draws on our own research on many aspects of housing development especially in in London and of course on the very wide range of relevant literature published during the last few years.

 

Four attributes of LSE London underlie this work:

  • We are independent researchers with no political axe to grind;
  • We have an informed understanding of the issues involved, based on decades of research;
  • We have close relationships with almost all relevant decision-making groups;
  • We have a real-world familiarity with London.

The three-stage approach enabled up to build strong relationships with all groups involved in trying to increase and improve housing investment in London. It has also built up trust that we have a valuable role to play in continuing to clarify the relationships between policy and outcomes; to monitor progress; to identify not just continuing barriers but also in particular what is working and can be better supported; and to provide a platform for stakeholders to discuss tensions and opportunities in an independent environment.

Related documents and other outputs:

About the author

Kath Scanlon

Kath Scanlon is Distinguished Policy Fellow at LSE London. She has a wide range of research interests including comparative housing policy, comparative mortgage finance, and migration. Her research is grounded in economics but also draws on techniques and perspectives from other disciplines including geography and sociology.

Christine Whitehead

Professor Christine Whitehead is the Deputy Director of LSE London. Christine is an applied economist whose research is well-known in both academic and policy circles and is Emeritus Professor of Housing Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Blanc,F

Posted In: Housing Crisis

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