Housing for Single People
by Michael Jubb
Around a third of the households in Wandsworth are occupied by a single person. That is significantly higher than the average for London, or for the rest of the UK.
This reflects the high concentration of younger adults in the borough, and particularly in Battersea, which has the highest concentration of 25-34 year olds of any parliamentary constituency in the UK. And the proportion of single people is even higher than some of the figures suggest. Many of the younger adults, for example, live not in single-person households, but in flats shared with friends, or in one of the over 600 houses registered as “houses in multiple occupation” (HMOs).
But London has recently experienced a rise in another form of housing to cater for young single adults, in the form of large-scale purpose-built shared living accommodation. Examples include The Collective at Old Oak Common, and others in Hackney and Colindale. Such developments can, if well-designed and managed, provide convenient accommodation with access to shared facilities, and good opportunities for social interaction. But there have been concerns about high rents and other costs for residents, and about the small size of the individual en-suite bedrooms (much smaller than the standard set for studio flats, albeit with access to shared kitchens and other facilities). The costs make these developments unavailable to people on less than median earnings, and the small space means that they cater for a transient population rather than for people who wish to live in the area permanently. They certainly do not meet the need for affordable housing for young people: a bedroom rather than a self-contained dwelling cannot be considered a suitable form of affordable housing in itself. Large concentrations of temporary housing for single people also bring the risk of over-stretching local services; and they would certainly not constitute sustainable and balanced communities.
There have now been four proposals for shared living developments in Battersea, all close to each other in Chatfield Road (now being built), Mendip Road (application pending), Haydon Way (application refused on grounds of scale, but now subject to an appeal), and Lombard Road (by far the largest, with nearly 550 units, where an application is imminent).
Planning policies have taken a while to catch up with developments of this kind. But both the recently-published London Plan and the draft Local Plan for Wandsworth set a number of conditions before large shared living developments will be approved, including the need for high-quality communal facilities, adequate space, a rigorous management plan, and — since such developments cannot of themselves provide affordable housing — a cash contribution towards the creation of separate affordable housing equivalent to at least 35% of the units provided. The draft Local Plan goes further, stating that any such development will be approved only if it can be clearly demonstrated, among other things, that:
there is an identified local need for the type of accommodation proposed;
it would not lead to an over-concentration of single-person accommodation in the neighbourhood;
the site is not suitable for development for conventional units;
it would not give rise to adverse impacts on the amenity of neighbouring properties, the character of the neighbourhood or would not support the creation of mixed and balanced communities; and
the development would be capable of adaptation to alternative residential use should there no longer be a need for such accommodation.
We strongly support the draft policies. But the draft Local Plan has to go through a number of stages, including an examination in public by a Planning Inspector, before it will be adopted in 2023.
It remains to be seen whether these draft policies will be adopted in the final version, and whether the applications and appeals currently being considered — and perhaps others yet to come — will be approved. If that were to happen, the concentration along and around York Road would bring a marked and unwelcome change to the area.
