London is on track to build just 5.5% of its housing target this year. That’s 4,800 homes out of the 88,000 needed. With affordability worsening and fewer homes being built, pressure is building on political leaders to take a different approach. Last month, Sir Sadiq Khan announced a shift in direction. The mayor will now “actively explore” building on parts of London’s green belt to address the capital’s housing crisis – a notable reversal of his long-held position against building on the green belt.
Under the new proposals, planners will consider releasing green belt land for housebuilding, with conditions. Any development would need to meet standards on affordability, energy efficiency, and public transport access. The move marks a clear break from Khan’s earlier stance, when he insisted there was enough brownfield land to meet housing demand. That line no longer holds as housing delivery continues to fall far below targets.
The average house costs more than ten times the average salary, pushing ownership out of reach for most first-time buyers. Across the country, there’s a backlog of 4.3 million homes that were never built. Many see the green belt as a major contributor to that shortfall. London’s green belt is more than three times the size of the city itself, and as Khan says, it’s mostly “poor quality, badly maintained, inaccessible to Londoners.” Despite its name, the green belt isn’t a special environmental designation. It was created to contain urban growth, not to preserve biodiversity. Advocates argue that just a small percentage of it could be repurposed without undermining its broader purpose, with estimates suggesting that building on just 5.2% of existing green belt land around cities could deliver 1.4 million new homes.
Opponents of the move argue that the problem isn’t supply, but affordability. They claim that building more won’t make homes cheaper or more accessible to those who need them. Instead, they argue for stronger policies on affordability and a focus on delivering homes that people on average incomes can actually afford. But without an initiative like Help to Buy, many of those homes are still likely to be out of reach for the very people they’re meant to help. There’s also concern that shifting the political consensus on green belt land could open the door to overdevelopment in the future, regardless of current intentions. However, the risk of overdevelopment is not a reason to avoid reform, it’s a reason to manage it properly.
Khan’s U-turn is not bold or brave, it’s long overdue. For too long, the industry has been expected to deliver homes while working around outdated constraints, and the reality of London’s housing crisis has become impossible to ignore. We have said time and time again that the green belt needs to be reviewed if we’re serious about easing pressure on supply. Khan’s shift is welcome, and a more permissive attitude to development on the green belt is likely to have a positive impact on the housebuilding industry, but it will take time to translate into actual homes. The capital is years behind on delivery, so it’s encouraging to see long-standing positions being challenged. The debate is no longer about whether the green belt should be touched, but where, how, and under what conditions. London can no longer afford to rule out options.
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