LDN: MHCLG and GLA consult on emergency measures to boost house-building in London

Three blogs in as many days might seem excessive, but this week has certainly warranted it!

Yesterday afternoon, just a few hours after the launch of the 30-month local plan system, the promised consultations on emergency measures to boost house-building in London opened.

There are two of them:

1. MHCLG’s consultation on the introduction of temporary CIL relief and changes to the Mayor of London’s planning powers; and
2. The GLA’s consultation on its Support for Housebuilding LPG

Both consultations run until 11.59pm on 22 January 2026.

This post summarises both consultations, so that you have everything you need in the one place.

MHCLG’s “Support for housebuilding in London” Consultation

This consultation sets out the Government’s plans for the new temporary CIL relief in London and proposed changes to the Mayor of London’s planning powers.

Temporary CIL Relief

The Government’s proposals for introducing a temporary CIL relief for qualifying developments in London are… in a word… complicated.

The intention is that the relief will apply:

• to residential developments (excluding student and co-living accommodation)
• situated within CIL charging authority areas in Greater London;
• which are not located on “excluded land”; and
• would attract a ‘pre-relief’ borough CIL liability of over £500,000 for the scheme as a whole.

Excluded land would be defined as:

• Green Belt Land
• Metropolitan Open Land; and
• parks, recreation grounds, allotments, golf courses or other locally designated open space

Eligibility for the relief is also intended to be limited to schemes which secure at least 20 per cent affordable housing measured by habitable room in its s.106 Agreement – a minimum of 60% of which is to be for Social Rent.

Level of relief

The “base” level of relief for qualifying schemes would by 50% of the borough level CIL charge. There is to be a ratcheting up mechanism for schemes delivering greater proportions of affordable housing than this. The proposal is for the CIL relief to rise by 2% for every additional % of affordable housing provided on site, maxing out at 80 per cent relief for 35 per cent
affordable housing delivery on site.

Procedure for claiming relief

The procedure for claiming the relief is also not entirely straightforward. Before submitting a claim, applicants will need to have:

• completed their s.106 Agreement (which is already a requirement – as planning permission generally won’t be granted until the s.106 Agreement is in place)
• secured any grant funding they may be eligible for;
• provide viability evidence demonstrating that the development needs the CIL relief to come forward; and
• Paid the £25,000 application fee.

At the moment, the viability evidence envisaged for this would comprise:

• a summary appraisal of a residual valuation of the proposed scheme; and
• a statutory declaration that the information underpinning the valuation is a true and fair assessment of the proposed development’s viability.

but views are being sought as to whether other evidence should be required instead.

Commencement requirements

There are also some quite tight rules proposed for when a development would need to commence in order to benefit from the new relief.

To be able to claim, a development would have to commence:

• after the CIL Regs introducing the relief have come into force; and
• before 31 December 2028.

Schemes that have already commenced development by this point would not qualify, unless they are phased developments. In that case, phases of the project which have not yet begun would be able to claim.

Clawbacks

As with the current CIL Relief system, there would be claw-back mechanisms attached to the new temporary CIL relief. These are intended to be attached to:

• progress of build-out rates, so a scheme could not benefit from relief by doing nothing more than nominally commencing; and
• number of affordable homes actually delivered

All of which seems really rather convoluted and potentially difficult to navigate. So there will be a need for very clear guidance on how the new relief is to be administered.

I am really looking forward to seeing how this is all captured in the legislative drafting – as putting these regulations together seems like a rather difficult job!

Changes to the Major of London’s Call-in Powers

MHCLG are also proposing to amend the Mayor of London’s call-in powers to allow him to call-in planning applications for 50 or more homes, where the scheme is not in the scope of his existing powers of recovery.

The intention is to apply a simplified referral process to these schemes, so that:

• the Mayor would be notified of receipt of the planning application, but not required to respond to the notification
• If the LPA plans to refuse the application, they would need to send a further notification, along with the following information:
  • the full reasons for the proposed refusal
  • copies of any representations on the application
  • the Officer’s Report for the application along with proposed planning conditions and the draft s.106 Agreement
• The Mayor would then have 21 days to decide whether to call in the application.

The application could only be called in if the Mayor considered that :

• the development would have an impact on the implementation of the London Plan; and
• there are sound planning reasons for the intervention

Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land

The consultation also looks at plans to expand the Mayor’s ability to call in developments on Green Belt or Metropolitan Open Land to include applications for the construction or change of use of buildings with a floorspace of more than 1,000 sqm – rather than just allowing him to direct the applications refusal (as at present).

GLA’s Consultation on the Support for Housebuilding LPG

If that was not quite enough to be getting on with, the Mayor of London is also consulting on the draft LPG intended to boost house-building in London through a number of time limited measures.

The consultation proposes:

Cycle Parking

• reducing the minimum long-stay cycle parking standards from residential developments; and
• expanding the range of types of cycle storage facilities that can be taken into account when deciding if the minimum standards have been met (including financial contributions in appropriate circumstances)

Housing design standards

The GLA are proposing to withdraw the following design standards:

• Standard C4.1 – which requires new homes to be dual aspect unless exceptional circumstances apply.
• Standard B2.5 – which requires the number of homes accessed by a core not to exceed eight per floor.
• Standard B3.1- which repeats cycle parking requirements from the London Plan, which are being amended.

Affordable Housing

The GLA is also consulting on a new, “time-limited” planning route for residential schemes on private land that can provide at least 20 per cent affordable housing (by habitable room).

Qualifying applications would be allowed to come forward without an upfront viability assessment and to access grant funding for affordable homes above the first 10 per cent of affordable homes which must be provided without grant.

The route would be available the earlier of until 31 March 2028 or the publication of the revised London Plan and would need to have been granted planning permission before the deadline in order to benefit.

A late stage viability review would apply where the project had not reached a fixed construction milestone by 31 March 2030

Eligibility

In order to be eligible, the applications would need to provide at least:

• 20% affordable housing for schemes on private land
• 35% affordable housing for applications on public land
• 35% affordable housing for projects on industrial land where industrial floorspace is not re-provided
• 20% affordable housing for projects on industrial land where industrial floorspace is re-provided
• 20% affordable housing for schemes on utilities sites where evidence of substantial decontamination, enabling and remediation costs is provided.

If these thresholds are met, then the unit mix must include a minimum of 60% Social Rent with the rest of the affordable housing being provided as intermediate tenures.

Excluded Schemes

The time-limited planning route will not apply to :

• Sites on Grey or Green Belt Land including sites that have been released from the Green Belt.
• Purpose Built Student Accommodation or Large-scale
  Purpose-built co-living schemes, or applications where these types of development are more than half of the total residential floorspace; or
• projects which involve the demolition of existing affordable housing stock.