An east London council faced with one of the biggest development proposals in recent years is to launch a study into its housing needs over the next 10 years.
The move, by Newham council, was prompted by fears that it will not be armed with crucial information about likely housing need during talks about a £3bn project.

The development would involve the construction of 4500 homes over 20 years on a 50 ha brownfield site in Stratford, east London. Developer Chelsfield proposes that 30% of these should be affordable.

Newham's director of housing, Chris Wood, said: "This is the largest single application to have been made within the boundaries of the M25 motorway in recent years. It has illustrated that, for these large-scale developments, we need to make some longer-term projections in terms of housing need."

He said that without such information, there was no way the council would be able to negotiate accurately with Chelsfield over the affordable homes it would provide through a planning gain agreement.

Wood added: "If you multiply this across the whole of an area like the Thames Gateway, you begin to see the complexities. As a result of this, the drift is towards subregional planning so we are meeting next week to commission a study into long-term housing need across the Thames Gateway authorities."

Newham expects the planning application to be processed in the next 12 months and for any research to be completed before then.

A spokesperson for Chelsfield said: "There's obviously a need to understand the local area better in Newham and the surrounding boroughs. We've done extensive housing research ourselves, but respect the fact they feel they need to do further work.

"You have to ensure that with 4500 new homes there is no under- or over-supply of a particular tenure of housing such as affordable or private," he added.

Source

Housing Today