Transport land helping to shape housing in London

“It's easy to get caught up in the numbers, but ultimately this is about giving people a front door, and a roof over their head.”

Places for London chief executive Graeme Craig is leading a programme of building affordable housing in the capital, making use of assets and under-used land owned by Transport for London.

“London is still a city in which, on average, one child in every classroom is in temporary accommodation. We can't solve that by ourselves, but if we can play a part in addressing the single most important thing that changes someone's life chances which is having a permanent home, that for me is what makes this job worthwhile.”

Places for London chief executive Graeme Craig

His company’s ambition is to build 20,000 homes in London, of which 1,450 have so far been completed and around 3,000 are under construction.

“Progress has been excellent so far, and we made a decision last month on a partner with whom we're going to bring forward 1,500 new homes next to Canning Town,” added Graeme. “The next 12 months are very important, as we look to develop 4,000 homes in Earl’s Court and 3,365 at Edgeware.

“We've got the sites, we've got the partners. Now it’s about going through the planning process, getting on site and getting these homes built.”

“Every month – and sometimes every week – there’s a new housing plan, consent, start on site, or a completion. We have a conveyor belt of new opportunities we are working through in London.”

Graeme also explained that railway stations are one of the most sustainable places to build. “Stations are where a lot of people want to live and work. You're much less likely to require a car if you're living or working immediately on the transport network. So it makes sense to build there for homes and offices, but also for other forms of infrastructure, including healthcare.”

He is also looking afresh at the provision of car parks. “We've got car parks that are used largely by people on the outskirts of our network, by people who travel past multiple rail stations in order to come in and park on the end of the London Underground network.

“That might be more convenient or cheaper for the people involved. But ultimately, those long drives to the end of our transport network add to congestion, add to carbon, add to air quality impacts. We think that creating affordable homes, infrastructure and workspace around our stations is a much more sustainable use of that land rather than a car park that's used Monday to Friday.”

Places for London is also beginning to work more closely with Network Rail to identify sites of common interest in the capital to develop.

“Let's look at those town centres where there may be two stations – one Transport for London, the other Network Rail – or maybe a bus station and ask what can we do if we think beyond the red line of what each company owns.

“We need to start to think a bit more creatively about how the public sector can come together and put in place the investment to deliver not simply the homes or workspace that London needs, but also the infrastructure as well.”

“This is about homes, and particularly the affordable homes that London needs, as well as tens of thousands of jobs being created. It's a financial return to Transport for London, but also about local investment in transport infrastructure, all of which is done with no public subsidy at all.

“I'd love to claim it's a new business model, but all I'm doing is going back 100 years to Metroland and John Betjeman. That was the basis on which much of London and its transport network were built. I am simply standing on the shoulders of giants who came before me.”

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