Deputy Mayor for Hackney joins our October 'housing, culture and communities' forum

Image above of Guy Nicholson, courtesy of the London Borough of Hackney

Future Cities Forum is delighted that Cllr Guy Nicholson, Deputy Mayor for housing supply, planning, culture and inclusive economy at the London Borough of Hackney will be contributing to our October discussion event at The Museum of the Home in London.

The forum will ask questions around whether more co-operation can be achieved between City Hall and local boroughs for the building of affordable homes and how can London acquire more devolved powers to help with meeting housing targets?

Cllr Nicholson will be talking about the vision for Housing and Neighbourhoods in Hackney as well as touching on supporting infrastructure, design and the importance of culture.

Hackney Council states that The Mayor of Hackney’s Housing Challenge uses income from homes that the council is forced to sell under the government’s right to buy policy to fund the council’s partners to build additional genuinely affordable homes.

It says it launched this programme because government restrictions prevent the council from using this money itself to fund new council homes, as income from right to buy can only fund up to 40% of the cost of a new home and must be spent within a specific time period.

From 2022 and 2026, the expectation has been to invest around £20 million to pay for around 100 additional homes for social rent built by housing associations in Hackney.

It says it will use council-owned or partner-owned sites in Hackney’s town centres that have already been identified for development in the council’s Local Plan to build new social rent homes as part of mixed-use developments in our town centres.

Over the next four years, these are expected to deliver an estimated 350 social rent homes. This number is an indicative estimate based on calculations in Hackney’s Local Plan about the overall capacity and tenure mix of these sites. It reminds its community that it is in the early stages of developing detailed plans for these sites and routes to deliver these, which will be informed by extensive engagement with residents and the community.

The Council says it aims to prioritise solving Hackney’s housing crisis and addressing the climate emergency. It says its housebuilding programme helps increase the number of trees and improve biodiversity.

To protect existing trees, plants, and landscapes, Hackney's new housing developments mainly focus on underused land like car parks, depots, and garages. It states that it will also plant more trees and enhance public spaces to improve biodiversity and make outdoor areas more enjoyable.