Affordable Housing Guidance

We are consulting on draft Affordable Housing and Development Viability London Plan guidance (LPG) and want to hear your views! 

This consultation is now closed.

A key objective of the London Plan is to provide the homes that London needs. This includes delivering higher levels of affordable housing for a fairer and more inclusive London.

The threshold approach to planning applications, introduced through the Mayor’s Affordable Housing and Viability SPG (2017) and set out in the London Plan, has helped to increase the levels of affordable housing gaining planning permission by embedding the requirement for affordable housing into land values and speeding up the planning process. However, there is still a very high level of need for more affordable homes across the capital.

The draft Affordable Housing LPG, together with the draft Development Viability LPG, are further steps towards ensuring that development proposals assessed through the planning system provide more of the homes that London needs. Guidance builds on policies of the London Plan and updates the 2017 guidance, setting out:

• how the threshold approach should work in practice
• requirements for the different types of affordable homes
• how affordable housing grant works with the planning process
• how to secure affordable housing in legal agreements
• how affordable housing should be monitored

The Affordable Housing LPG can be viewed in the 'documents library' available on this page.

The draft Affordable Housing LPG is being consulted on alongside the draft Development Viability LPG. All consultation events planned for this LPG will focus on both documents. Please join us for an event and share your views by completing our survey below.

Equality Impact Assessment

The equality implications of the draft guidance have been assessed through an Equality Impact Assessment which can be viewed in the document library.

Please share your views on our assessment and any potential equality impacts by completing our survey below.

What has happened so far 

Work started on the draft guidance in 2021. It has been developed using the expertise of the Mayor’s Viability and London Plan teams and through informal discussions with representatives of community groups, the development industry and London’s local planning authorities.

What happens next 

All feedback will be reviewed and a consultation summary document will be published alongside the final guidance.

Register to be notified of planning policy consultations or sign up for GLA Planning News.

You can email the team on: affhousinglpg@london.gov.uk.