The UK is facing an unprecedented housing crisis, and nowhere is this more evident than in London. To put it into stark relief: to meet current demand, the capital needs 1.85 million new homes – a figure that's been laid out in a joint report by the Centre for Policy Studies and Onward.
The report, titled ‘Fixing London Housing’, has been published on 2 July 2026, with forewords from James Cleverly, Conservative shadow housing secretary, and Laila Cunningham, Reform UK’s mayoral candidate for London. It identifies five key areas for development, with estate regeneration highlighted as the largest single opportunity – potentially creating an additional 500,000 homes by increasing density on post-war estates.
The blueprint includes two new Development Corporations for Southern Tower Hamlets and the Old Kent Road Bakerloo line extension corridor, as well as expanding the powers of the existing Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation. It also suggests five-year asset management pipelines for public land, a stronger presumption in favour of brownfield development within the London Plan, and the removal of Biodiversity Net Gain requirements for brownfield sites.
The report underscores the urgency of the situation, pointing out that housing starts in London have plummeted to their lowest levels since the Second World War. According to the authors, London faces the country's most acute housing shortage – a problem they attribute to successive Governments and the Mayor of London making it increasingly unviable to build in the capital.
Ben Hopkinson, head of housing and infrastructure at the Centre for Policy Studies, and Laurence Fredricks, senior researcher at Onward, commented: "London has by far the largest housing shortage in the country because successive Governments and the Mayor of London have made it increasingly unviable to build in the capital."
The recommendations also extend to expanding homeowners’ rights to develop their properties and making changes to the management of social housing stock – designed to dismantle what the authors describe as restrictive planning and regulatory frameworks, both at a national level and within the London Plan.