Greater London Authority Bill

The position of the noble Baroness undermines what I regard as a critical part of the Bill. I want to go back to the Candy & Candy development which was, in the end, based on decisions taken by councillors in Westminster. It provides us with a very good example of why the Mayor should have more responsibilities in this area—far more than the Government are giving him. Under the policy of the London plan, I understand that in the central activity zone, the affordable housing component in development, depending on the size of the development, is to be 30 per cent and, outside those areas, 50 per cent. It is quite simple to get round that. The 30 per cent in the Candy & Candy development turned into 11.8 per cent within the CAZ. That was because the flats built in the private part of the development were huge while those built in the affordable housing section of the development were minuscule. Whereas people in London imagine that 30 per cent of the developer’s development is accorded to social housing, it was 11.8 per cent in that development. I understand that that is also the case in other developments within the Westminster area and I presume that it is the same in other London boroughs. Let me explain the figures which lead me to that conclusion. The Bowater House development, where I want the Mayor to have more power—not less, which is the position of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, in this clause stand part debate—consisted of 82 flats in the private part and 70 flats in the social housing section. Of the 70 social housing flats, 41 were less than 600 square feet and the balance of 29 varied between 600 and just more than 1,000 square feet. In the private part of the development, 18 of the 82 flats were 900 square feet, 15 were 1,500 to 2,100 square feet and 52 flats were 3,300 to 16,500 square feet. Someone told me that those larger flats were selling for somewhere between £35 million and £80 million each. I find the figures unbelievable. Maybe the figure is the lower one of £35 million, but I am sure I shall be challenged by the Candy & Candy people when the proceedings of this Committee are drawn to their attention. My point is that the social housing element is not 30 per cent or 50 per cent, but is based on the number of units. Ken Livingstone, as Mayor—I hope he has people here today—should look at that. That is the way developers get round the system. It means that developers such as Candy & Candy bully the local authority into minimising the amount of social housing and, at the same time, they offer the maximum number of units. In this case, 70 flats were for social housing, but that was only 11.8 per cent of the development. Then they interfere with the social mix of communities outside the areas where they want the development to take place. In this case, the Bowater House development was to take place in Knightsbridge—beautiful, expensive, exquisite Knightsbridge. They did not want to widen the social mix of people living in the Knightsbridge community, or indeed in any part of Belgravia, or any part of that part of Westminster. They conveniently lifted the social housing package and planted it in the middle, where there was already a good balance between social and private housing; it is roughly 50:50, which I think is an ideal balance. I was always in favour of the sale of council houses outside London—against the policy of my own party—because I wanted to see balanced communities with a mix between private and social housing, but that is not the case here. With the agreement of the council and, on this occasion, with the agreement of the Mayor of London’s office—I understand it did not have the power to stop them doing what they did—they simply dropped the 70 units of social housing provision in a part of Westminster where there was already a balance, and it upset the local community. The Conservative councillors were brought in to argue with them, saying, ““Why are you doing this?”” Of course, they could not answer because it is unanswerable. The facts are that the policy, as far as Westminster was concerned, was to rarefy the social atmosphere even more within Westminster by concentrating the private part with the vastly expensive flats in Knightsbridge and ensuring that the social housing was simply placed in another area which destabilised the social dynamics of that area. That policy does not work. The noble Baroness will make the matter worse. By deleting this clause, she wants to reinforce and strengthen the power of the local council—she calls it the local community—as she says it understands more. It does not. The Conservative councillors in the ward where the social housing was put in Westminster were not even aware of what had happened in their local authority. I know because I went to the meeting and I interviewed a chap. He did not know what had happened, and when he answered the questions that he was asked by people at the meeting he did not have enough knowledge to recognise what was happening in terms of the social engineering by the planning authority in Westminster. I want to make a little recommendation for Ken and his successors, whoever they may be. When they consider big planning applications coming in under the new arrangements, they should ensure that the documentation relating to social and affordable housing is part of the application and not put with Section 106 agreements, such as the one that I have here that talks in general terms about the fact that some sort of social housing provision is going to be made. It does not say when that is going to happen. It sets down certain criteria, but when I tried to find out this morning whether they had actually been enforced, I was unable to do so. It sets out in the most general of terms the circumstances in the Section 106 agreement under Schedule 1, and that is not good enough. The Mayor should see the detail of the affordable housing component running in tandem with the original private development application so that he can make a balanced judgment as to what that social housing component is and whether he can use his powers to influence the process in some way and maximise the number of units. We do not want those calculations based on the 11.8 per cent principle, as happened in this case. If we are talking 30 per cent, let us have 30 per cent of all the footage available in the development going to social housing. We do not even need 50 per cent in those conditions and can do with a lesser figure based on a real footage calculation, not simply on the basis of the number of units.