please empty your brain below
The official population increase is one thing...the real increase and the real baseline number is another. I reckon add-on at least 5%.

UltraMan | 16.06.19 - 2:17 p.m. | #

Population is not the same as 'households' - thus, not all dwellings are or will be single-person residences.

B | 16.06.19 - 2:23 p.m. | #

All London boroughs have an average of 'two point something' persons per dwelling, apart from Newham (3.1), Westminster (1.9), Kensington & Chelsea (1.8) and the City (1.2).

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.06.19 - 2:25 p.m. | #

I wonder if inner London will ever regain its peak population of almost 5 million (in 1911).

Alan | 16.06.19 - 2:35 p.m. | #

I'm wondering about dwellings and households. I think for census purposes a household is a group of people living in the same building who have breakfast together. So if you turn part of a house into a granny flat, you may be increasing the number of dwellings without accommodating any extra people.

But this is entirely a distraction from the main point, which is something to do with the way the housing crisis in London and the rest of southern England is bad and getting worse.

Malcolm | 16.06.19 - 4:31 p.m. | #

One thing that is not taken intolerable consideration as far as I have seen, is the number of households splitting. Not the average density per household.

Both mean you need more residences for the same population...

Southern Heights (Light Railway) | 16.06.19 - 5:32 p.m. | #

If anyone has any thoughts on house-building, rather than households, that'd be interesting.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.06.19 - 5:38 p.m. | #

Delivering new houses depends on the availability of land. The redevelopment of Docklands and the former industrial areas along the Thames has helped deliver huge amounts of housing in the likes of Tower Hamlets and Newham. Once the new Barking Riverside rail link is provided another 10,000 or so homes are expected to be delivered along the Thames. Next up is Battersea and large numbers of new homes are going up around the former power station. If the various bodies can get the right infrastructure in place then Old Oak Common could also deliver thousands more new homes.

Outer London tends to have fewer large development sites available and its harder to redevelop the council estates as the land values are not high enough to support the delivery of both replacement social housing and new housing. Private sector housing in outer London is difficult to redevelop at much higher densities due to land assembly issues, so we get smaller in-fill developments.

Until outer London councils become much more ambitious in replacing empty or under performing retail units and low value industrial space with housing they will continue to under perform in terms of housing delivery. Imagine how many houses could be accommodated in place of 75% of the Purley Way retail park.

gazebo | 16.06.19 - 6:08 p.m. | #

I'm surprised that Newham (Olympic Park, plus other developments around the Royal Docks) and Barking & Dagenham (everything south of the A13, especially) aren't higher on those lists - as entire (and expansive) new neighbourhoods have been created in those boroughs recently, as I don't think is the case to any extent elsewhere.

One reason for the low construction in some of the outer London boroughs is presumably Green Belt planning restrictions/prohibitions: around half of Havering, for example, is Green Belt.

Dominic H | 16.06.19 - 11:37 p.m. | #

Interesting comparison between Croydon and Merton. I wonder if the difference is due to the growth of Overground services in Croydon.

gt | 17.06.19 - 6:57 a.m. | #

Croydon's population is almost double that of Merton, so in percentage terms the difference is not so great. Merton, along with Sutton, Richmond and Kingston, are four of the six smallest boroughs in London, so it is therefore perhaps unsurprising that they are in the yellow category on DG's map. I wonder how would they compare if building rates were measured as a percentage increase rather than the absolute number.

timbo | 17.06.19 - 8:19 a.m. | #

Kingston is the smallest London Borough so one would expect it to be in the lower number of houses built group but ssh, I like it as it is.
Actually there are some large developments pending which should bump us up a bit.

mikeH | 17.06.19 - 8:49 a.m. | #

Fifteen London boroughs are smaller in area than Kingston.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 17.06.19 - 9:04 a.m. | #

Interesting that Barnet has the highest numbers for any of the North London outer London boroughs. I imagine the redevelopments around Colindale have boosted the numbers in recent years.

Mikey C | 17.06.19 - 9:39 a.m. | #

I'm surprised Harrow isn't a darker shade, though it might not show up until the next set of figures as just on my 10 minute bus ride into the town centre I pass 3 major developments going up, 2 recently completed and another under proposal!

There is a huge amount of building going on in the western side of the borough at least.

And that's on top of the mini-blocks popping up where single dwellings have been demolished and an extraordinary number of single dwellings that have or are being converted into HMOs - including the 2 bed semis next door to me that now have 6 bedrooms apiece.

The people are already here, they just need somewhere to live

Cornish Cockney | 17.06.19 - 10:57 a.m. | #

Kingston is the smallest by population, but not by area.

dg writes: Incorrect. K&C is smaller.

There is a relatively high proportion of green belt land.

In percentage terms (increase over past ten years, using the same data as DG) Tower Hamlets are still top of the table, and Kingston is still second last.

Tower Hamlets 24%
City 19%
Newham 15%
...
Bexley 4.1%
Kingston 3.593%
Ken & Chelsea 3.587%

timbo | 17.06.19 - 11:13 a.m. | #

My apologies - Kingston is smallest (apart from the City) not by population, but by number of dwellings (67140).

timbo | 17.06.19 - 2:43 p.m. | #

Wait until what I call 'Crossrail homes' are delivered, that ought to change the landscape a bit...

'Crossrail homes' are those drab apartment buildings that loudly advertise how long it will once for people to get to Bond Street (if it opens...) by Crossrail. Ealing and Hillingdon combined ought to have at least 7000-8000 being built right now, and I bet that picture is mirrored on the eastern side of London.

straphan | 18.06.19 - 10:33 a.m. | #

Sadly there is no way to tell how many of the new dwellings are bought by property investors (particularly from the Far East or Middle East) and left vacant. I get the impression that it might be fewer than say five years ago but I may be wrong as usual

Andrew | 19.06.19 - 7:46 a.m. | #











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