At the following rates:

Zone 1 boroughs – £50 per square metre

Camden, City of London, City of Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Richmond-upon-Thames, Wandsworth

Zone 2 boroughs – £35 per square metre

Barnet, Brent, Bromley, Ealing, Greenwich, Hackney, Haringey, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Redbridge, Southwark, Tower Hamlets

Zone 3 boroughs – £20 per square metre

Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Croydon, Enfield, Havering, Newham, Sutton, Waltham Forest

The levy is intended to raise £300 million towards the delivery of Crossrail, which is essential to the capital’s growing economy and to ensuring it remains a competitive global business centre in the 21st century. It forms part of the funding package for the project agreed between the Mayor and ministers.

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Supply of new homes is failing to keep pace with demand

England is currently suffering from a huge housing shortage, especially in terms of social rented housing. This shortage is due to the fact that low rates of house building over several decades have failed to keep up with increasing demand. Large amounts of social housing stock have also been sold off under the Right to Buy and not replaced.

Housing demand has increased for several reasons, such as:

• greater numbers of single person households
• a population which is living for longer
• increased levels of net immigration

Affordable Housing: Delivering the homes and communities people want

It is critical that any new homes benefit new and existing communities. This means building the right kind of homes, in the right places. At present, there is a shortage of decent, family-sized accommodation. It is also vital that a significant proportion of new housing is affordable, and this means building social housing for rent.

New homes must be desirable places to live. We want to avoid repeating mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s where the quality of housing developments was sometimes sacrificed in a drive to build homes quickly. New developments must include the necessary supporting infrastructure and services to create thriving communities, and should be built to high environmental standards.

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FirstSteps

Affordable Housing: Where Does it come from?

 

The Government committed to a target of building three million new homes by 2020, this was back in 2007.

 

In the past, local authorities created affordable housing. As part of subsequent resident buy back schemes they have withdrawn from this undertaking.

 

The private sector has now been delivering affordable housing. The London Plan currently calls for 50% affordable housing on all new developments above 10 units. The reality maybe more like 35% subject to local authority.

 

Due to less new developments this has reduced the amount of affordable housing delivered.

 

Housing Associations are the not for profit organisations that own and manage the affordable housing. They also undertake  development of 100% affordable housing schemes.

 Read More – HCA

Affordable Housing: The Standards

Families in Affordable housing typically have much reduced choice. As such there are many safe guards for quality in affordable housing as definded by the Homes & Communities Agency.

Design and Quality Standards, including Life Times Homes and Code for Sustainable Design. These documents define minimum space standards, levels of access and sustainability, which relates to running costs and general impact on society of the development.

More on DQS

Affordable Housing: Advice for Landowners & Developers

Find out if your land/ development opportunity could benefit from an affordable housing scheme.

Gordon at YOOP has been delivering affordable housing schemes for over 10 years in the UK and Wales. Call for a chat.

0208 954 6291 or ge@yooparchitects.co.uk

YOOP Architects

Got some LAND?

Got an old building?

Need an idea of values? what can be achieved?

YOOP regularly carries out rapid quality feasibility work on how to get the best out of a situation.

There are always challenges to overcome, this is what creates the VALUE.

Call today to see what Value you can achieve, 0208 954 6291 Gordon.

PrestonBennett

Many of their clients ask our advice about permitted development, so thought it would be a great idea for an iphone app. Availible soon on the iStore.

The scheme is now fully worked up on YOOP’s BIM system. See previous Blog item.

New scheme to add a pharmacy facility to the existing GP Surgery at Sherard Road Eltham. The scheme has a green living wall as a facade to promote a sense of well being and create an attractive frontage the mainly residential Sherard Road. A top hat roof wall also allow natural light into the pharmacy saving on energy and making it a positive place to work and visit.

Concept sketch for new Pharmacy

First look at a new scheme to add a pharmacy facility to the existing GP Surgery at Sherard Road Eltham. The scheme has a green living wall as a facade to promote a sense of well being and create an attractive frontage the mainly residential Sherard Road. A top hat roof wall also allow natural light into the pharmacy saving on energy and making it a positive place to work and visit.

For more information call Gordon 02089546291 or ge@yooparchitects.co.uk

Do you need to achieve a more effective and productive working environment?

Maximising the space you have, making it do what you want it to do.

Dr Shein, whose ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi formed a Government of National Unity with archrival, Civic United Front, recently, appealed to businesspeople to explore Zanzibar’s enormous investment potentials in tourism, fisheries, manufacturing and agro-industry.

“Zanzibar has a very fast growing tourism industry. This is due to many factors, the principal of which are Zanzibar’s attractive history, inter-racial culture, peace and stability, excellent tropical climate with lots of sunshine and many other wonders which are unique to Zanzibar,” he said.

The tourists’ arrivals from Europe and other continents have been growing steadily since 2007. Currently, there are 225 hotels and guest houses with a total number of 5,301 rooms. Zanzibar is served by a number of international airlines, some with direct connections with Europe and the Middle East.

Full Story

YOOP is working with Zanzibar contractor Strada International.

For any information call Bashir 02089546291  bk@yooparchitects.co.uk

How useful is pre application advice from most planning departments suffering from reduced budgets? Should you bother?

Most Local Authority planning departments now offer this services for a fee. It ranges from;

1. written advice following a written submission

2. a meeting with written follow up

3. a meeting with written advice

These can run into hundreds of pounds with various or undefined time scales.

Feedback from various sources suggest that its a very mixed bag. The advice obtained can take a long time as there is not pre set turn around time. Also the advice is not binding and there are many stories of advice being a standard response to being contradicted once an application is submitted.

A recent story is a planning consultant submitting a scenario to replace an existing dwelling in the greenbelt in a less sensitive location and away from the working farm. The detailed submission was responded to favourably. The subsequent application for planning permission was refused. An example where the quite detailed pre application submission was pointless.

With less and less staff available many professional are suggesting a two application scenario is easier and more effective.

This entails submitting best effort with subsequent refusal. The good thing this does is that the planners have to deal with it in the allotted 8 weeks, and also you get a detailed report why it was refused. A second application that addresses these issues should be successful.

Depending upon the nature of the application the second submission would be free from a planning fee. Assuming that the scheme does not change radically other consultant fees would be minimal.

So maybe in the current climate a two application process is more prudent than pre application advice.