London must build on green belt, thinktank says

London's housing shortage has been caused by a "structurally unfair" market and a "lack of long-term vision", the Centre for London says

London should "strategically" build on low-grade greenbelt land to provide more homes, a thinktank said.

A Centre for London (CfL) report said building on such land would enable the capital to double annual housebuilding to 74,000 homes a year for 15 years.

It also said the government should increase local planning resources and investment in affordable homes.

The government said it was determined to provide homes "without concreting over the countryside".

Low-grade greenbelt land, called the "grey belt" by the Labour Party, includes land within broader greenbelt areas that has been neglected or has already been built on - such as disused car parks or areas of wasteland.

The report forms part of the the independent thinktank's research looking at reasons behind London's housing shortage, which the CfL argues is because "the city has not been allowed to grow, its housing market is structurally unfair" and there is a lack of a "long-term vision for housing".

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Following the research, the thinktank identified a range of solutions, including the mayor of London and the government setting up "development corporations to build on strategically defined areas of the green belt, and ensure they compensate for any loss of nature".

It also argued "national government should increase its investment in the affordable homes programme to £15.1bn a year to fund the building of 90,000 social homes a year in England", saying more than 30,000 of those should be built in London.

It added the government should "adequately resource local authority planning departments, both through expanding grants and tying planning fees to inflation".

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: "We are determined to build the homes that people in London and across the country need, without concreting over the countryside.

"Our ambitious long term plan for housing includes specific measures for London, from providing up to £1bn from our Affordable Homes Programme for regeneration, to building 65,000 homes through Docklands 2.0."

The mayor of London has been approached for comment.

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