“Why is Havering Paying the Price?” Andrew Rosindell challenges Sadiq Khan over Greenbelt plans.
Andrew Rosindell, the Member of Parliament for Romford, has today written to the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, challenging the draft London Plan’s allocation of Green Belt release to Havering and the minimum target of 73 permanent Gypsy and Traveller pitches imposed on the borough.
Under the draft Plan, Havering is assigned a greenfield housing target of 12,060 homes, significantly more than its brownfield target of 9,652.
This means Havering will be shouldering 21.5 per cent of London’s entire Green Belt release.
Together with Hillingdon, two outer London boroughs would carry almost half of all Green Belt release across the capital.
“Havering is being asked to carry more than a fifth of the Green Belt release for the whole of London,” said Mr Rosindell.
“More of our housing target is to come from Green Belt than from brownfield land from a supposedly brownfield-first Plan for London.
“I have asked the Mayor to set out the methodology that produced this, because on the face of it two outer boroughs are being made to shoulder almost half of what the entire capital is giving up.”
Mr Rosindell also questioned the justification offered for Green Belt release, pointing to Opportunity Areas designated in the 2021 London Plan that do not appear to have been carried forward into the draft.
New Southgate, identified in the 2021 Plan as having potential for 2,500 homes and 3,000 jobs, does not appear anywhere in the new document.
He continued:
“My constituents are being asked to give up Green Belt land they value dearly to make up for brownfield capacity lost to a transport project that was mothballed six years ago.
“I have asked the Mayor to confirm exactly which Opportunity Areas have gone, what capacity they represented, and what assessment was made of alternative brownfield land before that greenfield target landed on Havering.”
Gypsy and Traveller Pitch Targets
Turning to the pitch targets, Mr Rosindell noted that the Plan requires boroughs to treat the figures as a minimum and encourages them to go further, whilst the Plan explicitly acknowledges uncertainty in the underlying data.
“The Plan proposes a binding minimum of 73 pitches for Havering, tells councils they are encouraged to exceed it, and in the same few lines admits there is ‘a degree of uncertainty regarding Census data for these groups’.
“Local authorities are best placed to assess local need. Instead these numbers are being set centrally and handed down.”
Mr Rosindell further warned that the Plan’s own policies appear to conflict with one another.
“These proposed pitches are required to be well connected to healthcare, education and public transport.
“The Plan then says Green Belt sites will be needed for them.
“However here in Havering the Green Belt is precisely where that connectivity does not exist.
“When you follow through the Plan’s own criteria around the use of Green Belt land it sets design criteria of 90 to 160 dwellings per hectare at three to six storeys.
“Nobody can seriously suggest that describes a Traveller pitch.”
He concluded:
“I have put a series of straightforward questions to the Mayor in the terms of his own Plan and I expect straightforward answers before the consultation closes on 15 October.
“The people of Havering deserve to know how these figures were arrived at, why our Green Belt is being made to pay for failures elsewhere in London, and whether anyone at City Hall has checked that the
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