London is the city with the worst planning delays for affordable housing in England, the country’s biggest housing association has warned.
Clarion Housing Group, which manages 125,000 homes across the UK, said planning officials in London were taking more than two years to approve social housing developments.
Officials in cities such as Manchester, York, and Leeds took around a year to sign off projects.
Clare Miller, the chief executive of Clarion, told the Telegraph that delays in London are “very severe.”
This is despite London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan’s pledge to prioritise social housing in the capital.
Clarion builds an average of 1,400 homes each year, but said it waited 26 months to secure permission on a 249-home development in the London Borough of Merton in south London.
Last year saw similar delays of 21 months on a 145-home social housing project in Tower Hamlets.
Meanwhile, a 505-home project at Brewery Gardens in Manchester, which comprised 60 per cent affordable housing, took just 11 months to secure and sign off.
Similar projects in York and Leeds took 13 months and 18 months respectively.
Ms Miller said: “We are developing all over the country. Certainly in Manchester, we got planning permission pretty quickly.
“That’s a system that’s resourced and where politicians are behind it and they want to see action.”
Ms Miller claimed London planning authorities were not suitably equipped to deal with the number of applications.
However, Edward Clarke, an associate director at planning consulting firm Lichfields, said planning delays were a problem suffered across the country, not just in the capital.
He told the same publication that “determination periods in general nationwide are quite frankly crippling.”
He said the length of time required to get projects over the line means that construction costs and other calculations go out of date.
“Things that you thought were viable become no longer viable,” he said.
The Greater London Authority has been falling behind its goal of achieving both affordable housing targets and wider housebuilding goals set by the government.
Reforms were announced in May to help make it easier for those in the housing industry and councils to deliver more homes in the capital.
