The Pipeline of London’s property building sector is full on small and medium sized projects. There are 1,031 new build development in the development process in London, and 685 of these projects are small to medium developments. These developments are made up of anywhere between 20 and 150 properties. However, having 66% of small or medium property developments in the pipeline will only create a fifth of individual properties. His means that only one in five of individual properties in the process of development are small to medium sized new build schemes. Only five of London’s boroughs have small or medium sized developments. With the reported housing shortages should there be more small and medium developments or should development projects be expanded to meet the demand?
These results have come from Kinleigh and Folkard & Hayward, the London estate agent with over 40 years’ experience in the property sector. Research from KNF shows that small and medium sized developments are key to London meeting the demands on housing however it demonstrates more could be done in way of supporting builders on a smaller scale in order to promote more small developments. Ways that this support from the government could be achieve could be freeing up more public land for smaller developments. However, problems with local sensitivities could impede planning permissions.
Bromley is the borough of London that has the largest proportion of small to medium developments, by providing 70.5% of all of properties within the small to medium developments. Other boroughs doing well are Camden (66%), Westminster (63.4%), Richmond upon Thames and Kensington (63.1%) and Chelsea (53.8%). On the other end of the spectrum are Newham, Barking and Dagenham, Hammersmith and Fulham none of whom provide more than 8% of the total percentage of units within Small and Medium Developments. Newham is the lowest with 4.3% of units in SMDs.
