Housing secretary Michael Gove has repeatedly warned the Mayor of London that the London Plan is holding back housebuilding in the capital and letting down Londoners and on 18 March directed the Mayor to conduct a partial review of the London Plan.

He has also asked the Greater London Authority (GLA) to report back findings in September.

This will focus on two specific areas. The first is industrial land, as an estimated 6,800 hectares of land is being used for industry in the capital. Of this, 736 hectares, the equivalent of approximately 900 football pitches, could potentially be turned into housing developments, but are stuck in the planning system, and developers have said the current policy is too restrictive.

Secondly, Gove has pointed out opportunity areas. These are 47 areas across London that the Mayor and the GLA have identified as each typically having the potential to deliver at least 2,500 new homes or 5,000 new jobs (or a combination of the two), but too many have made almost no progress and others appear to have plateaued.

A new ‘super-squad’ of planners, brought in by government, will use their expertise to work across London to speed up planning decisions. The specialist team will work on complex cases that for too long have been held up in the planning system.