Westminster City Council is to adopt a new policy calling on developers to build more homes for a social rent on new developments — but some have questioned the viability of the move.
The “City Plan Partial Review” will place tougher rules on developers by shifting the proportion of social rent homes in newbuild developments from 40 to 70 per cent of the affordable homes requirement, and reducing intermediate rent homes — another type of affordable housing — from 60 to 30 per cent.
Major residential developments will have an affordable homes requirement of between 35 percent and 50 percent of the total.
For the first time, sites proposing fewer than 10 homes will also be required to contribute to the affordable housing target, which can include payments to the council’s affordable housing fund in lieu of actually building them, according to the policy. The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) understand this also applies to single units and is calculated on a price per square metre rate.
The review follows three years of engagement with residents, businesses, developers and local stakeholders. It also identifies four “strategic sites” in the borough for new homes and workspace and reaffirmed the council’s commitment to asking developers to explore all retrofitting options before demolishing a building.
But the social homes policy may result in fewer developments being built, warned Thomas Douglas, head of policy and campaigns at Propertymark, a membership organisation representing UK estate agents. He said any housing targets and planning policies must be evidence-based and reflect housing needs across different tenures and schemes.
He told the LDRS: “Westminster City Council must be confident that a change in quotas is viable to be delivered, and developers must have assurances that they have the right financial incentives to ensure quotas are achieved. Without this, increasing the quota could have the opposite effect, creating a real risk that fewer development schemes come forward, thereby slowing housing delivery across all tenures.”
Douglas praised the council’s Retrofit First approach and urged it to work closely with the property sector to ensure its plans remain deliverable and support long-term housing supply.
Cllr Geoff Barraclough, cabinet member for planning and economic development, said the policy would help create a “fairer, healthier and more welcoming Westminster” and see smaller developments play their part in reaching affordable housing goals.
He said: “The City Plan Partial Review focuses our efforts on the most important challenges facing Westminster: tackling the climate crisis and delivering more genuinely affordable homes.”
In October last year, Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan and the government’s housing secretary Steve Reed announced the amount of affordable homes for new developments in London would drop to 20 per cent from its previous target of 35 per cent to stimulate housebuilding in the capital. Local councils can also set their own affordable housing requirements, but with major developments, the Mayor has the power to take control of the decision.
It comes as some 336,000 households in London were on a Social Housing Register or waiting list in 2023-24, the highest since 2012-13, according to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government data analysed by City Hall.
Westminster Council’s retrofit first policy, which has been in development since 2022, requires developers to fully explore all “reasonable” options for retrofitting and adapting existing buildings before demolishing and rebuilding them.
According to the council, the built environment accounts for 90 per cent of total CO2 emissions, compared with around 40 per cent for a typical local authority. The council said 27,000 tonnes of CO2 has been saved since the policy was introduced, which they say is the same as the annual energy usage of nearly 3,700 homes.
Cllr Barraclough said the policy “sets a new benchmark for local authorities”. He said: “It will help reduce carbon emissions from today’s buildings and has the potential to be the biggest single emissions-reduction initiative undertaken by any council in the country.
“We are also strengthening our commitment to affordable housing by increasing the proportion of social rent homes in new developments and ensuring smaller sites also play their part.
“Taken together, these policies create a roadmap to a fairer, healthier and more welcoming Westminster — one that works for today’s residents and for generations to come.”
The council has identified four sites with significant potential for mixed-use developments which are: St Mary’s Hospital, Westbourne Park Bus Garage, land adjacent to Royal Oak, and Grosvenor Sidings.
These sites come with “clear” planning guidance on building new homes, modern workspaces, public spaces and a modern St Mary’s Hospital, according to the council.
Jocelyne Fleming, policy lead at The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), a professional body for construction management, said evidence consistently shows retrofitting existing buildings can lead to them outperforming new construction in terms of overall lifetime carbon emissions.
She said: “Beyond the environmental case, retrofit delivers clear economic and social benefits. Retrofit and renovation programmes have been shown to stimulate local economies by creating jobs and supporting regional growth. These labour-intensive projects rely on local supply chains, making them well-suited to maximising employment across the construction sector.
“Crucially, retrofit also provides a pathway for skills development. It offers opportunities for training and re-training workers in low-carbon construction skills, helping to future-proof the construction workforce.”
However, Westminster City Council opposition leader, Cllr Paul Swaddle, said the Labour-run authority’s decision to cut intermediate housing would make it “almost impossible for people who work in Westminster to continue living here”.
He told the LDRS: “Nurses, early career doctors and teachers have relied on these homes to stay close to their jobs. By reducing intermediate housing, Labour is forcing key workers out of the city they serve. Same old Labour talks about fairness, but only when it suits them.”
He added: “Improving existing buildings to make them more energy efficient can be positive. But Labour’s Retrofit First approach is stifling development across Westminster. Buildings that are not fit for modern use are being left in limbo, instead of being replaced with better buildings that Westminster needs.
“What makes this worse is the double standard. The only recent major scheme to secure permission for full demolition and rebuild was a council-led project. One rule for Labour-led Westminster Council and another for everyone else. Same old Labour hypocrisy is holding Westminster to ransom; deterring investment, blocking homes and leaving local people to pay the price.”
The City Plan 2019-2040 will be formally adopted at a meeting of the full council on Wednesday 21 January 2026.
Westminster City Council: Adoption of the Partial Review to the City Plan.
Editor’s note: This article was amended on Friday 16 January 2026 to make a correction and clarification to state that the retrofit-first policy has been “in development” since 2022.
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