LDN Weekly – Issue 299 – 17 January 2024 – Beyond the Boats
LEASEHOLD LATEST...
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No images? Click here  BEYOND THE BOATS“Last Saturday, with a group of friends and wrapped up against the elements, I braved the clifftop walk from Ramsgate to Broadstairs. Looking out at the slate grey yet totally flat English Channel, in passing I remarked that after a few weeks of bad weather, the calm conditions looked likely to encourage migrants risking all to cross from France. Yet, while the sea was like a millpond, the Channel at this time of year is icy cold and the shipping lanes are as packed as ever with ferries and container ships. Heartbreakingly, just a matter of hours after our walk, five migrants died in a failed attempt to reach the Kent coast. Back in London and this week the Government’s flagship Rwanda Bill is reaching its final stages. As we press send on LDN, it’s unclear how much trouble Rishi Sunak is in with his own backbenchers, but it’s fair to say it has been a difficult few days for him and his Government. This week has speeded the Tories ever further towards being a single issue party - stopping the boats seen as pivotal to any route to victory in the election. Yet there’s much more going on across the political and public policy landscape than the Government’s latest internal convulsions. London hurtles towards May’s mayoral election and Lewisham faces a mayoral by-election. We await Michael Gove’s quick review of the London Plan. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill reaches Committee Stage. You may have noticed some small changes to last week’s LDN, as we switched over to a different way of sending it out. Hopefully it didn’t affect your reader experience but if you did have any problems, do let us know. Today’s LDN is issue 299 – next week we reach a major milestone and we will look to mark LDN’s triple century in an appropriate manner.” Nick Bowes, Managing Director, Insight We hope you enjoy this edition and if you don't already, do follow us on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can also visit our website for more information on LCA’s team, services, and clients. And finally, a technical note: If you like hearing from us, make sure to add ldn@londoncommunications.co.uk to your contacts or ‘safe sender’ list – this will help ensure our news bulletin lands in your inbox. If you love LDN and are looking for a weekly update on the social housing sector, sign up for our Social Housing Weekly newsletter. Compiled by our client team, it provides a tour of the week's major news out of the social and council housing sectors, including commentary from LCA Director, Harriet Shone. Click here and sign up today!  LEASEHOLD LATESTLease in our time: This week, the Government’s flagship Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill has reached Committee Stage. “Feudal”, “outdated” and “unfair” are just some of the words Secretary of State Michael Gove has used to describe the existing leasehold system. Lease is the word: The Bill aims to make it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to extend their leases and buy their freehold. It is also intended to make it easier for leaseholders in mixed use buildings to take over the management of their building. Leased lightning: Leasehold reform has cross-party backing with Labour and the Tories both vying for the leaseholder vote in the coming election. With time running out before a General Election, the pressure is on to get the Bill on to the statute book in time. Gove is “absolutely confident” it will become law. Not in the bill: A ban on the creation of new leasehold flats nor any consequent reforms to reinvigorate commonhold as a replacement for leasehold. Not in the bill (yet): A ban on the creation of new leasehold houses nor restrictions to ground rents, which is currently subject to a consultation. But the Government has indicated that they’ll add provisions to the Bill to cap ground rents and ban leasehold houses at a later stage. Qualified support: The British Property Federation (BPF) dubbed the Bill a “missed opportunity”. Matthew Pennycook, Labour’s Housing Spokesperson, said “commonhold should be the default tenure for all new properties, with the system completely overhauled so that existing leaseholders can collectively purchase more easily and more to commonhold if they wish”. Unintended consequences: Some are concerned that widening the scope of collective enfranchisement to include properties where residential comprises just half the floorspace damages the regeneration of High Streets and the curation by landlords of large development projects, counter to the Government’s wider aims. The BPF warn the “Bill will wipe billions of pounds off the savings of not just investors, but charities, pensioners, and local authorities”. Stuck in committee: out of 17 members of the Bill Committee, five are current or former housing ministers or opposition housing spokespeople, two are MPs just elected in recent by-elections and two are due to stand down at the next General Election. Lording it: Given the Government’s in-built majority, the Bill is unlikely to change much as it progresses through the Commons stages. However, the House of Lords is a different matter - the Government doesn’t have a majority and have suffered 257 defeats (and counting) since 2021. End of the Peer Show: Guaranteed to annoy members of the Lords are governments that flood a Bill with new amendments mid-way through scrutiny. With the Government indicating they’re likely to do this, it will be interesting to see how much this riles up peers. Not the end of it: Labour have vowed to seek to amend the Bill and strengthen reforms, with the prospect of an alliance with a group of Tory MPs to ban new freehold houses. Matt Pennycook said that if the party win the next election that “Labour will have to finish the job” of leasehold reform and will “enact all the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, right to manage and commonhold in full”. LONDON POLITICS LATESTHeadline grabbing: Monday morning saw new YouGov polling showing Labour winning a 120-seat majority if an election were held today. The polling of 14,110 respondents, commissioned by the previously unknown ‘Conservative Britain Alliance’ and based on the new constituency boundaries, found that Labour would sweep to victory with 385 seats, leaving the Conservatives with 169, the Lib Dems 48, the SNP 25, Plaid on three and the Greens with one. London focus: As for London, the same polling suggests that an already red city would be even redder – Labour would have 65 MPs in the capital - the Conservatives left with just six (Finchley and Golders Green, Hornchurch and Upminster, Old Bexley and Sidcup, Orpington, Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner and Sutton and Cheam) and the Lib Dems four (Carshalton and Wallington, Kingston and Surbiton, Richmond Park and Twickenham). Flashback: Meanwhile, Rallings and Thrasher have published their analysis showing how the new 650 constituencies would have voted in the 2019 General Election. The Conservatives would gain an additional seven seats on its current majority, with Labour down by two, and the Lib Dems down by three. In London, this would equate to three more seats for Labour and one less for the Conservatives. Motorists’ motivation: Looking ahead to May’s Mayoral election, Conservative candidate Susan Hall set out her five point plan to end the ‘war on motorists’. Hall pledged to remove floating bus stops, allow black cabs to go wherever buses go, cancel the ULEZ expansion and rule out ‘pay per mile” road charging. The Tory candidate also repeated her promise to restrict funding for Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) and get rid of 20mph zones on main roads. In The Telegraph, Hall suggested 20mph zones might increase the likelihood of accidents, saying “I pay far more attention when I’m driving at 30mph than I do when I’m driving at 20mph.” Savvy spending? Meanwhile, the Conservatives have launched an attack on the Mayor, accusing him of ‘wasting’ £123m of funding on ‘pointless schemes’, which they argue would have been better spent on initiatives to improve health outcomes. In response, the Mayor’s team has questioned some of the analysis, while also highlighting that some of the projects began under Khan’s predecessor Boris Johnson. Broadway star? The Tory candidate in tomorrow’s by-election in Wandsworth’s Tooting Broadway ward has been criticised for his campaign materials failing to mention the Conservative Party. Otto Jacobsson has also told local residents to ‘go on strike’ and withhold their vote in the election, to ‘change Labour’s attitude’. One of Tooting’s most famous sons – Citizen Smith – would be proud of this power to the people approach. Hackney hiccup: Tomorrow’s by-election for Hackney’s Cazenove ward has also been hit by controversy after Labour’s candidate Laura Pascal was suspended following complaints of transphobia. Pascal will still be listed as the party’s candidate on the ballot paper as it is too late to make any changes, but if elected will sit as an independent councillor. Lewisham leadership: Lewisham’s Deputy Mayor Cllr Brenda Dacres, Cllr Amanda de Ryk, Cabinet Member for Finance and Strategy and Cllr Rudi Schmidt have entered the race to be Labour’s candidate in the Mayoral by-election triggered by the resignation of Damien Egan. Egan stepped down after being selected to stand as Labour’s candidate in the Kingswood by-election. A date for the by-election has not yet been announced, but in a borough where every politician is currently Labour, there’s a good chance that whoever the local party chooses as its candidate will become Mayor LONDON PLANNING ROUNDUP
PEOPLE NEWS
Candidate watch
 THE BEST LAID PLANS?Permitted irrelevance, right? Planning policy could be a key feature in manifestos ahead of the next General Election, with the Green Belt, biodiversity, tall buildings and housing targets likely to be much contested. Here’s the latest headlines from the battleground. Here we go again: The Government’s plans to introduce biodiversity net gain regulations have been postponed for the second time since November 2023 due to ‘parliamentary delays.’ The new regulations would require developers to add 10% more habitat and biodiversity per development to counter the impact of new buildings. Cul-de-sac-racy: Considered a cornerstone of the Government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, proposals for ‘street votes’ have now been published. The plans include granting residents the right to agree highly localised design principles potentially permitting densification or the building of extensions without the need for planning permission. Town hall tumbleweeds: Last year saw the lowest number of Local Plans submitted for review to the Planning Inspectorate, and lowest number of new drafts opened for consultation. Analysis from Planning Resource shows that this makes 2023 the worst performing year for Local Plans since records began in 2012. Bedtime reading: National Highways has submitted its breathtaking 359,000-page planning application to deliver the Lower Thames Crossing east of Dartford. The £10bn project is aimed at relieving congestion on the M25 and improve access to ports in the South East. As a major infrastructure project, it falls to the Transport Secretary to make the final decision, with a recommendation from the Planning Inspectorate expected by 20 March. The size of the application has reignited the debate about the UK’s sclerotic planning process. Excellent timing: Head of the National Audit Office General Gareth Davies has called for a new and ‘smarter’ approach to delivering major infrastructure projects, stating that Whitehall is wasting billions of pounds on a ‘crumbling’ system. Speaking in Parliament, Davies said projects such as HS2 and central IT systems suffer from a ‘governance’ problem which delays completion. Kitty’s got claws: Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, was quick to respond to the Davies speech pledging a Labour Government would ‘modernise’ public services. Jones has also launched Labour’s own review into major infrastructure projects led by industry top brass Paula Reynolds, Chair of the National Grid; Juergen Maier, former Siemens UK CEO, and Mark Reynolds, CEO of Mace. Writing on the wall: The latest figures on construction output from the Office for National Statistics reveal a challenging market for the building sector in November 2023, declining 0.2% for a second consecutive month. Barbour ABI analysis shows the value of contracts awarded in 2023 fell year-on-year by £11bn. Flying low? Three investors in London Heathrow Airport have announced that they will be selling their combined 35% stake in the airport in a decision which could prompt the ‘biggest shake-up’ in Heathrow’s corporate direction since its privatisation in the 1980s. It follows Ferrovial’s decision to sell its 25% stake in the airport last year. Farewell to the good and great: In sad news, the private members club and homelessness charity House of St Barnabas has announced that it is closing. The charity operated workplace programmes for homeless Londoners, funded through its members and a private restaurant on Soho Square. WE RECOMMEND
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