1.5m new homes by Toby Fox

We are pleased to share this month's webinar from 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge, with London Borough of Enfield.

Lucy Benjamin joined Enfield Council as a 17-year-old apprentice.

Aneesh Maini, Head of Development at Enfield Council, shares how the borough is rethinking housing delivery — opening its pipeline to smaller builders, streamlining procurement, and focusing on design quality that lasts.

Estate regeneration is never quick — but done well, it changes lives.

Meridian Water is London’s largest council-led regeneration project – 10,000 homes, 5,000 jobs, and £190 million of infrastructure already funded.

What does pragmatic leadership look like in practice?

What does regeneration really mean for the people who live through it?

What can the next generation of New Towns learn from the last?

Cllr Ergin Erbil, Leader of Enfield Council, shares his vision for a borough that’s growing fast — and the leadership it takes to turn that growth into better homes and stronger communities.

We are pleased to share this month's webinar from 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge, with London Borough of Sutton.

How do local people really feel about new homes?

How do you balance growth, community, and place?

What makes working in public-sector housing special?

What makes a council great to work with?

Head of Housing Regeneration Adam Tucker explains what needs to change to get more homes built — from the level of grant funding and local authority finance to the way we attract people into the sector.

When Sutton’s contractor went bust halfway through a 100% affordable housing scheme, most councils would have had to start again. Instead, the team at Sutton — led by Adam Tucker with support from Red Loft, Bugler Developments and consultants CPC — brought the site back to life.

Helen Bailey, Chief Executive of the London Borough of Sutton, explains why housing is central to everything councils do — from public health and education to economic renewal.

Spencer Palmer takes us to Beech Tree Place, one of Sutton’s largest affordable housing projects.

Sutton’s Director of Housing, Linmora Blair, discusses the borough’s growing housing need and how regeneration is creating new opportunities.

How do new council homes change people’s lives?

Sutton’s first Passivhaus-standard council homes — 11 new flats at Wiltshire House in Wallington. Councillor Jake Short explains how Sutton Council is using small sites and direct delivery to raise standards, cut tenants’ energy bills by 40%, and set the benchmark for future council housing.

Chairman Killian Hurley was kind enough to share with us some of the wisdom that has enabled Mount Anvil to drive forward eight estate regeneration projects in seven London boroughs during the last five years – all subject to build cost inflation, new building regulations and a tough sales market – delivering 4,490 homes, including 1,596 affordable.

The masterplan to deliver 3,000 new homes at Staples Corner was two-and-a-half years in the making. Brent Council Regeneration Manager Kiran Chauhan describes her role in it, her pride in its adoption last November, and the joy she takes in testing ideas, and discovering innovations, that come from gathering different talents and experiences in collaboration to squeeze as much as possible out of constrained sites.

Visiting Wembley High Road with Brent Council Head of Regeneration Jonathan Kay, we look at housing delivery in a "tight urban environment” very different from neighbouring Wembley Park: Cecil Avenue and Ujima House (renamed Zephaniah House, after the poet), providing 291 homes, 50% affordable, plus commercial and community spaces, in partnership with Wates.

As Brent Council explores how to bring forward sites around Wembley Park, head of planning and development services David Glover discusses development costs and risks and how they are amplified by changing circumstances – even at a location with huge capacity and potential to deliver homes and jobs, with really good public transport access, near a major town centre, which isn’t going to impact existing communities...

Head of Planning and Development Services David Glover examines aspects of engagement, including AI and digital engagement models (with a shout out for Cornwall Council’s work); how the council involves its communities in creating its Local Plan (and what should happen when a Local Plan is not adopted); and operating a strategic planning committee (and how it anticipates the Government’s planning reforms).

Our conversation with Gerry Ansell, Director of Inclusive Regeneration and Climate Action at Brent Council, takes in the council’s role in delivering Wembley Park, the difficulties of direct delivery, the valuable role of planning committees and building safety regulation.

In the sunny, verdant setting of the new Union Park, we meet John Stiles, Placemaking Manager at Brent Council, to talk about the success of the surrounding Wembley Park development – and the one thing he would change, if starting the scheme again from scratch.

Describing her pride in providing homes for people of many nationalities and cultures, London Borough of Brent Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Planning and Property, Councillor Teo Benea sets out an ambition to build 23,000 new homes in the next few years. But beyond the homes themselves, she asks developers in the borough to focus on the spaces around them – especially places that enable that diverse community to come together.

We are pleased to share this month's webinar from 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge, with London Borough of Camden.

With 50,000 people due to retire by the end of this decade from asset management roles, 20,000 from development roles, and 40% of the construction workforce, we need to recruit an awful lot of people just to stand still. Zohra Chiheb (Regeneration Team Leader, Camden Council) and Tom Conlon (Development Director, Red Loft) discuss the need for more capacity to support the 1.5m new homes ambition.

The Camden Film Quarter is a bold scheme, to deliver over 1000 affordable, private sale, BTR and student homes, with media production facilities, a National Film and TV school and the London Screen Academy. And it’s required bold moves by @Camden Council: to act as convener, bringing together 18 landowners to get a consensus on making something of the area’s potential; to agree to dispose of its own land, rather than procuring a development partner, to deliver at pace; to be clear that it would use CPO powers if required; and to accept that even after all this there was risk that it wouldn’t work out.

Meeting at the Greenwood Centre, a facility co-designed with and providing shared services for disabled and older people, Regeneration Team Leader Zohra Chiheb talks us through her role in delivering Camden Council's Community Investment Programme, the day-to-day responsibilities of a project manager, the skills required and the values that inspired her to leave behind a career in architecture and take up a role in local government.

The Government’s new homes agenda is as much about growth as it’s about housing – new jobs as well as new homes. The regeneration of Euston driven by HS2 is a case in point: 32,000 jobs and 4-5,000 new homes over 25 years. The Leader of Camden Council, Councillor Richard Olszewski, talks us through the scale of what could be achieved, what it takes to ensure that the growth is inclusive and local people benefit, and how a locally-led development corporation with planning powers would be the most effective vehicle to drive the regeneration programme.

The new homes springing up around the HS2 redevelopment zone are part of the gain from investment in new national infrastructure – but also part of the cost. As she sets out what Camden Council wants to see change, to get more homes built, Cabinet Member for New Homes and Community Investment, Councillor Nasrine Djemai, talks us through the disruption she faced to her home and education as a local resident growing up in the area, and what that taught her about community engagement.

“We’re not just sayers, we’re doers,” says Councillor Nasrine Djemai, Cabinet Member for New Homes and Community Investment at London Borough of Camden. “Camden is the place where things happen.”

We are pleased to share this month's webinar from 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge, with Westminster City Council.

Interviewed shortly before the launch of “Good Homes for All”, the report by Architects' Action for Affordable Housing, Founder Member Luke Tozer of Pitman Tozer Architects, sets out his concern that good design might be neglected in the rush to build more homes. Luke also highlights the challenges of meeting promises to deliver on schedule, how disappointment can impact the trust that local communities have in the development process, and the need to change the adversarial culture of development.

In our final episode from Westminster, co-sponsor Mount Anvil’s newly-appointed Chief Growth Officer Lisa Ravenscroft describes the developer’s commitment to building robust public-private partnerships as a model for driving new homes delivery – exemplified by the Church Street regeneration to provide 450 homes, 50% affordable, and additional placemaking.

Development Manager John Ndukuba started out in engineering before making the switch to public sector housing delivery with Westminster City Council. He describes cutting his teeth on projects like Dudley House, providing 197 intermediate homes, a church and a school.

Senior Development Manager Mollie Mills O’Brien considers her role on the 144-home scheme at 291 Harrow Road, and the variety of daily tasks she has to keep the project “always in line with the vision: what stakeholders and what we have decided that place should be”.

We hear about the evolution of Westminster City Council’s direct delivery programme, and the 45-strong team it takes to deliver 4,000 new homes.

We visit 300 Harrow Road to hear why Westminster City Council invested some £60m improving the proportion of social and affordable homes in this scheme and Westmead from 50% to 100%.

“We’re very well resourced and we’re ready to go,” says James Green, Director of Regeneration and Development Strategy at Westminster City Council. Calling for “serious conversations” about raising grant funding to scale up its pipeline of over 2,000 new homes, he adds: “We’re hugely ambitious. We can do this, as a council.”

Join Setareh Neshati, director of regeneration and development delivery and operations at Westminster City Council, on a journey that began with residents demonstrating against the regeneration of Ebury Bridge Estate to the delivery of 750 high-quality, net zero new homes, more than 50% affordable. Hear how industry KPIs were met, while fulfilling the Council's high ambitions for residents, despite building through Covid on a constrained site – the ingredients for successful housing delivery – and a call for more grant funding to enable more new homes.

This episode closes with a perfect summary of the state of public sector housing delivery from Westminster City Council Director of Development and Regeneration Strategy James Green: a highly ambitious target, immense challenges to overcome, relentless drive and determination to succeed – and optimism that solutions can be found.

We are pleased to share this month's webinar from 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge, with London Borough of Lambeth.

Lambeth Council Development Manager Luke Kelly offers careers advice and reflects on the skills needed to perform his role, and the mixture of excitement and trepidation that goes with shaping and delivering homes that people will live in. “There’s nothing like getting stuck into a project,” he says.

In Lambeth, south London, almost 5,000 households are in temporary accommodation and 30,000 on the waiting list for new homes.

A visit to a housing site in Brixton, South London, to talk about successful new housing and the systemic issues holding back the delivery of new homes.

In the appropriate setting of the new black-led cultural events space, Brixton House Theatre (London’s first new theatre in half a century), we explore links between housing and Lambeth’s creative economic drivers, including the life sciences innovation district SC1, creating 60,000 new jobs as a key element of the London Growth Plan. With 20% of households facing deprivation, how does the Council ensure the benefits of growth are felt equally?

We are pleased to share this month's webinar from 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge, with London Borough of Barking & Dagenham.

A TikTok viewer asked about “the deal for the people in the middle” - "The normal working people who can’t afford £1m but also working professionals not eligible for council homes?” This special report offers a response from Barking and Dagenham Council’s development company Be First, and housing consultant @Red Loft, focusing mainly on the shared ownership tenure and the need for more of it...

Be First Interim Managing Director Caroline Harper sets out the recruitment and skills requirements of the company’s new mandate, and offers some advice on career development. “If you’re enjoying a job 80% of the time, you’re in the right area," she suggests. “If you’re not, you need to change something.”

London Borough of Barking and Dagenham leader Dominic Twomey on how national housing policy trickles down to local people, how difficult it is to make policy accessible to parts of the community, and a revelatory first experience of consultation. “It was a very sobering lesson for me.”

A special double-header on “what needs to change to deliver more homes”, with Be First head of consultancy Anna Sinnott and senior project manager Danny Taylor discussing planning and procurement reforms.

We’re at 12 Thames Road, where London Borough of Barking and Dagenham’s wholly-owned development company Be First is “taking a bit of a risk” co-locating 3,500 (100% affordable) new homes with 40,000sq m of light industrial space.

The final part of our three-episode report on the reshaping of London Borough of Barking and Dagenham's wholly-owned development company, Be First: today we’re with Paul Nicholls, the new managing director for London at Wates, Be First’s development partner on the highly-regarded Gascoigne Estate regeneration.

Be First’s newly-appointed interim managing director Caroline Harper describes the company’s new mission: maintain delivery of 750 new homes a year, manage the Council’s £4bn asset portfolio, and reach out to prospective development partners and investors, getting at least one new site to market this summer.

Leader of London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, councillor Dominic Twomey, describes the financial constraints forcing significant change at the Council’s wholly-owned development company Be First.

Newly-appointed interim managing director of Be First, Caroline Harper, describes Barking and Dagenham’s unique scale of opportunity to provide new homes for aspirational working Londoners. And with council-backed funding drying up, can the council-owned company find ways of making housing investment attractive to private sector capital?

We are pleased to share the fourth webinar in our series, with Hounslow

Special report from 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge on community engagement.

London Borough of Hounslow Assistant Director for Housing Development and Supply Pratima Sood highlights the importance of supportive colleagues and mentors, both inside and outside the workplace, and she recommends a career in Public Sector housing delivery to anyone who loves a good haggle.

How do councils balance the need for investment and growth - not least in new homes - with local people’s resistance to change - their fear, as London Borough of Hounslow leader, councillor Shantanu Rajawat puts it, of “what will be available for me, in my time of need, if there is so much pressure on the system”?

Director of regeneration and growth Peter O’Brien describes how London Borough of Hounslow is responding to the Government’s plans for a modern industrial strategy and to the London Growth Plan by creating a Business Case for Growth, which supports the Council’s investment in its own capacity to deliver economic growth and new homes.

We’re at Lampton Parkside, where Notting Hill Genesis is building 940 homes on Hounslow Council’s former civic centre site, with 40% affordable and 75 bought by the Council.

A housing success story? Director for regeneration and growth Peter O’Brien kicks off our London Brough of Hounslow season, describing a borough that has over-delivered on housing targets, shrunk its TA list and still has the potential for 7,000 new homes on the Golden Mile (Great West Road) alone.

Retaining talent is one of the big challenges facing Councils, so we asked Ben to describe how he’s built and sustained a career in public sector housing delivery, from his early years in education and then as a sustainability consultant, through to helping Cambridge deliver its thousandth home.

A special report from 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge on how investment partnerships have unlocked housing sites for development in Cambridge, and where else they might be appropriate.

Attracting talent is a big challenge for councils delivering new homes, so we spoke to some of that talent: Cambridge City Council Project Manager Molly Savino told us about her role in delivering 120 council homes, a community centre, library and other facilities and commercial space at East Barnwell.

We talk about the local politics of delivering new homes with Cambridge City Council executive councillor for housing Gerri Bird. In particular, she describes the impact of disruption and change on tenants, and how the Council eases that process for them – and her insights as a council tenant herself.

In this episode we visit East Barnwell, where Cambridge City Council wants to build 120 new homes, a community centre, library and other commercial units in the city’s most deprived ward. What’s stopping it? Benedict Binns, assistant director for development, lists the chief blockers to delivering more homes in Cambridge.

Welcome to 1.5m New Homes, the Local Government Challenge.

Welcome to 1.5m New Homes, the Local Government Challenge!

We are pleased to share the second webinar in our series, with Ealing Council.

Our visit to Ealing coincided with the Government’s announcement that it will build 32 Homebuilding Skills Hubs (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ne...)

This is 1.5m New Homes, The Local Government Challenge, sponsored by Red Loft and Bugler Developments.

Welcome to 1.5m New Homes, the Local Government Challenge, sponsored by Red Loft and Bugler Developments.

Special report from 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge on how contractor sector vulnerability is impacting housing delivery.

In this episode of 1.5m New Homes, we talk about the local politics of delivering new homes with Ealing Council leader, councillor Peter Mason. Describing the challenges facing London in the 1940s (air quality, long commutes, and tall buildings rising on the skyline of an increasingly crowded city) he says: "They were dealing with some of the same challenges we have now. The answer for them was new towns.”

Following the collapse of contractor Real LSE last year, Ealing Council has been considering its options for the regeneration of the High Lane estate in Hanwell. We met principal project manager Sam O’Neill onsite and caught up with assistant director for housing regeneration Emma Osmundsen afterwards, to understand how turbulent market conditions have disrupted a scheme that could provide over 500 new homes - and how that has created a chance to “build better”.

Ealing Council laid the “golden brick” on its 1,000th genuinely affordable new home, we visited one of the council’s big housing projects, Acton Gardens, with regeneration manager Sarah Phillpot, to understand the ingredients for the success of this 3,500-home, 20-year, £1 billion-plus scheme.

Responding to reports of recent comments by Deputy Mayor of London Jules Pipe (https://tinyurl.com/37ymmm38) on the impossibility of delivering 1.5m new homes, or London’s contribution of 80,000 a year, Ealing Council Strategic Director of Economy and Sustainability Peter George has requested clarification.

In this episode you can find the audio from our webinar, hosted by Toby Fox where we discussed our findings in visiting Slough, and other topical matters, with a panel of experts:

In this episode we talk to Slough Borough Council head of development management and enforcement Neetal Rajput about her role in bringing a Homes England and Muse scheme forward, how she got started on a career in public sector housing delivery – and why it means so much to her to be delivering new homes in Slough. Her biggest asset?

In this episode, Pat Hayes talks us through his unorthodox career path, the motivations and core skill set driving his progress, and the learning he has picked up on the way. He describes his mentors and influences, his understanding of what people want from Local Authorities, and the challenges of working under financial pressures.

Slough could be a big part of solving London's housing challenge, its housing delivery team believes. "Positionally and spatially it's absolutely marvellous; in population terms it's marvellous,” says Exec Director Pat Hayes. “And there's huge development opportunity: places with cleared brownfield sites, lots of space in the town centre, a massive opportunity in the industrial estate around Heathrow. So everything is going for Slough and the challenge is why it hasn't quite happened, and what we need to do to make it happen."

Welcome to the 1.5M New Homes project sponsored by Red Loft

This is the 1.5M New Homes campaign, sponsored by Red Loft.