Parker-Boris and the end to hobbit homes (we hope)

I went along to NLA's 'London's Future Landscape' event last week, a half day event with speakers and a question and answer session in the morning followed by a routemaster tour to Canary Wharf and the Olympic site in the afternoon. My colleague Jennifer Islip has actually beat me too it though, bloging about it a few days ago over on The Office Blog. If you want an overview of the day and what the speakers had to say on how they see London's future development then head over there for a read.

Instead of reiterating what's already been said I'll be concentrating on an interesting topic of conversation brought up by Colin Wilson, the senior manager of planning decisions at the GLA. He spoke about the Mayor's 'London Housing Design Guide' published in August, which sets a new benchmark for housing in the capital.

It's well known that London has some of the smallest homes in Europe as well as the western world, not least because Boris Johnson keeps on telling us about our 'hobbit homes' we live in. He's looking to reintroduce policy standards similar to that of Parker-Morris, the old minimum housing size guidelines which were abandoned by Margaret Thatcher.

The recently published London Housing Design Guide will have a staggered inception and will soon be a requirement for publicly-funded schemes, those on LDA owned land and those benefiting from HCA funding. It's a good start and with Colin Wilson going on to state that it's hoped these new standards will go on to be the norm covering all social housing, the real question is how likely is this and can it go even further? It's hoped that eventually Boris Johnson when updating the London Plan in 2012 will introduce the new standards set out in the design guide meaning they become policy for all housing, social and private. Some doubt he will have the expertise and persuasion to do this; if he does though he will leave a truly great lasting legacy to all of London.