Incoming RIBA president calls for 700,000 homes in London's suburbs

Ben Derbyshire says dramatic increase will tackle capital’s housing crisis

RIBA president elect Ben Derbyshire has called for a building programme in London’s outer suburbs which would see 700,000 homes built over a generation to help solve the housing crisis.

Speaking at this year’s Ecobuild, Derbyshire (pictured), speaking in his capacity as the chair of HTA, said the density of homes in the capital’s outer suburbs was so low that “you cannot see the homes for the trees”.

He added: “There are an average of 15 dwellings per hectare, you can hardly see the houses from the trees, we can bring this up to the average and over a generation would yield 700,000 new homes.”

The incoming RIBA president, who takes up the post in September, was speaking during a panel discussion on how to deliver more affordable homes in London.

He said he welcomed London mayor Sadiq Khan’s appointment of an expert panel to scrutinise viability assessments for new developments “as the whole process is pretty complicated”.

Speaking at the same event, Susan Emmett, director of residential research at property agent Savills, said too many schemes in London were still focusing on the luxury market, leaving affordable housing at the bottom of the list.

“Most of the development coming through is skewed to the top end of the market, at the higher end demand and supply is [more] evenly matched than at the lower end where there’s an enormous gap between demand and supply.”

We are delighted to announce that Ben will also be speaking at Explore Offsite Housing which is a two-day exhibition and conference taking place on 04 and 05 April 2017 in Inmarsat, London.

To see the full list of confirmed speakers, click HERE.