It's been a while and I thought my blogging days were over but having read the draft of the New London Plan I felt compelled to write down my thoughts as to why I think they have got it so badly wrong and how it could be so much better.
By way of context, when Andy Burnham became Prime Minister he said something that struck a chord with me. "When I say we need good growth in every postcode, I mean every postcode across the whole of the UK. Every place and every person matters". Spot on Andy. For so many decade we have seen the regions struggle as London and the South East has hoovered up so much of the UK's economic growth. This has led to crazy property prices in London and a developer driven land grab which prioritises housing over just about anything else. Worse still, the quality of housing seems to come as a much lower priority to the quantity of housing. It is also a 'pile them high sell them dear' strategy. With two adult children who see no future in London as they will never be able to afford even the cheapest 1 bed flat in London, we seem to have reached a really desperate point in history where communities become increasingly transient or for the super rich.
The starting point for the latest draft of the London Plan, which you can read here is that,
" On past trends London is expected to add as many as 1 million more additional residents over the Plan period - growing to a population of over 10 million. A huge increase in housing delivery is needed to both accommodate future growth and address the chronic shortage of homes for existing residents".
However, the key question is where are these 1 million more people coming from. Is it natural growth from current London residents? Answer, absolutely not. Birth rates in London are declining with many Londoners moving out of London to more affordable accommodation outside the capital. All of the current growth is from inward migration both international and domestic. UK immigration fell to 171,000 in 2025, and some are forecasting that by the end of 2026 net migration could be negative.
But coming back to the London Plan's target to meet the 1 million plus population growth, the plan is requiring London Boroughs to build 558,000 new homes. The London Plan also states that "the Mayor remains committed to a strategic target for London of 50 per cent of homes to be genuinely affordable over the longer-term plan period". Unfortunately that is nothing more than an exceptionally hopeful wish with all fingers and toes crossed because everyone know that it will never happen. In Barnet we saw the example of Intec House at Moxon Street. Originally it was planned as 100 flats with 35% affordable. The developer then came back saying the scheme was not viable so cut all of the affordable homes. The scheme was eventually approved again but a taller building with more flats and less employment space and just 15% affordable homes.
Barnet have been set the target of delivering 32,730 homes over the next 10 years of which 7,000 will be built on the Green Belt. That means at least 60,000 increase in population possibly closer to 80,000 given the number of incomes needed to afford even the most basic of new homes bringing Barnet's population close to 500,000 people. Two things immediately spring to mind; the first is where will all the jobs come from and the second is what additional infrastructure will be need to meet the needs of a half million people borough.
So let's look at what the London Plan says about employment. Their employment forecast evidence runs through till 2050, well beyond where the house target plan of 2036. It states that the number of additional jobs created in Barnet between 2025 and 2050 is just 12,000 or a compound growth rate of just 0.3% per annum.
Most of the employment growth will be in Inner London with Professional, Scientific, Technical and Real Estate activities (+373,000 jobs from the 2024 level) and Information and Communication (+164,000) accounting for around half of the projected increase between 2024 and 2050. Four sectors are projected to see declines over the projection period: Manufacturing (-37,000 jobs), Transportation and Storage (-34,000), Wholesale (-32,000), and Retail (-32,000).
So at best, Barnet will become a dormitory for Inner London, but more seriously it looks like an increasing social divide losing lower skilled and lower paid jobs fulfilled by existing local residents and replaced by higher skilled higher paid jobs filled by people currently living out of London. In Barnet we used to have one Strategic Employment Site which was the North London Business Park, but that was redesignated for housing because the housing developers could always pay more for the land that an employment business.
So coming back to the initial quote from Andy Burnham about good growth in every postcode, it seems like the London Plan continues to reinforce the migration into London at the expense of the regions and runs counter to what he wants to achieve. Historically, the huge housing targets in London have driven up demand for land making it uncompetitive for many industries as housing developers always seem to be able to pay more for development plots. One industry that does have the money has been the data centre sector which is seen as the essential building block of the AI revolution. The London Plan has an entire supporting evidence report all about data centres where is says that as of November 2025, there are 99 operational data centre sites and 26 in the planning pipeline, predominantly north of the Thames. The report notes that:
"Data centres are a vital component of London’s growing digital economy, as recognised in the London Growth Plan1. London’s position within the FLAP-D data centres markets reflects its global economic significance, high connectivity, and proximity to end-users".
The problem is that data centres demand huge amounts of electricity and water, both of which are under extreme pressure in London. The report notes that, "Electricity resilience is critical, as grid constraints and surging AI-driven demand push operators toward robust redundancy measures. This includes widespread adoption of N+1 UPS systems (back up power supply with additional capacity), on-site generation, and battery storage to maintain uptime and mitigate risks from delayed grid reinforcements. These strategies are increasingly seen as essential for hyperscale facilities where even short outages can have significant financial and reputational impacts. Water consumption is another major consideration. A 100MW hyperscale data centre in the UK can consume up to 2.5 billion litres of water annually, equivalent to the needs of approximately 80,000 people, driving the shift toward closed-loop, air, and liquid immersion systems to reduce reliance on potable water."
This is supported by Affinity Water's Report "Running Dry - England's Water Security Crisis" which states that:
"Within Affinity’s region approximately 125 data centres are either proposed or under construction, with some individual facilities requesting supplies of up to 35 litres per second, equivalent to the peak water demand of 3,500 homes.15 One proposal sought to consume 21ML/d, the equivalent to circa 147,000 people. The planning framework is built around household growth and per capita consumption and has not adapted to commercial users whose water needs can match those of a market town."
Taking Andy Burnham's desire to spread economic growth in every postcode then the most obvious location for a major hub of data centres is not in London but in the West Country where the transatlantic data cables come ashore and close to Hinckley Point nuclear power station. It's also important to note that annual rainfall on the north coast of Devon/Cornwall is between 50% and 100% more than London.
This leads into the broader infrastructure issues for London. The new London Plan notes that there will be a significant requirement for health facilities but leaves it up to the Integrated Care Boards to deliver the capacity.
The problem in Barnet is that major developments have already taken place yet the infrastructure has failed to deliver. In New/East/High Barnet we have around a 1,000+ flats/houses planned or nearing completion yet our local Integrated Care Board failed miserably to secure new GP premises. Barnet General is under huge pressure currently but another 60,000 + residents are only going to make matters worse. So where will patients be treated, will there be sufficient GPs or dentists? Pressure seems to be off school places simply because families are moving out of London to find more affordable accommodation outside London - the overall forecast for London is 1 million more adults but an actual decline in the number of primary school age children.
It is also interesting to note that the forecast population increase will require an estimated 1,900 prison places, something which is particularly challenging when we already face a prison overcrowding crisis and early release of prisoners.
The last point is about the quality of the environment and creating great places to live. The London Plan seems obsessively focused on housing numbers at the expense of the environment in which we live. North Finchley Leisure Park is a good current example. There is a large multi screen cinema, multi-lane bowing plus restaurants and the leisure centre. Since it was built in the 1990's it has been an important social hub for families in Barnet yet this is now being redeveloped for high density housing. The cinema and bowling capacities are being scaled back and will now be on the Lodge Lane car park in North Finchley - more people, fewer facilities. Worse still the new London Plan says that 7,000 new homes must be created in the Green Belt which seems to be focused around Mill Hill. This was originally planned to be a regional park, something which people could enjoy and gain emotional refreshment but now it will just be more housing.
So where does that leave us. We know we need additional housing in London to meet the shortfall that already exists but from my perspective we should be creating incentives for employers to move out of London to the regions helping to take the heat out of the housing market. Housing that is built needs to be genuinely affordable and I welcome Angela Rayner's announcement of nearly £10 billion of allocations to build thousands more quality council, social and affordable homes with £6 billion allocated for London. I just hope that they can be delivered quickly and in a way that encourages families to stay in London. I think the new draft London Plan needs a complete rethink, not just focusing on housing but on what makes London a great and affordable place to live, and if it stays in its current form it will only make the housing crisis in London worse and continue to suck economic growth from the regions.
Come on Andy, make sure you deliver growth to every postcode and stop London becoming the home for the transient and super rich.
