Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) operating in the construction and housebuilding sector will benefit from a new pilot scheme unveiled by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, it has emerged.
The new Small Sites, Small Builders initiative – a programme which aims to boost the number of affordable homes available in the City – will see small plots of publicly-owned land passed over exclusively to SME builders for development.
It comes after Mr Khan instructed Transport for London (TfL) to kick-start the scheme by making ten of its small sites accessible to SME housebuilders, who will be able to bid against one another for access to the land.
It is estimated that each plot of land up for grabs has the capacity for anywhere between two and 42 homes – capable of providing around 111 new homes for London residents.
The scheme has been welcomed by the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), which says that the news will provide a boost to small businesses in the sector who have long been “crying out” for City land.
However, Barry Mortimer, Director of the FMB, said that in an age where “the number of small sites available is decreasing,” more initiatives along the same lines as Mr Khan’s plan were required.
Sadiq Khan, said: “For far too long, London’s housing market has been over-reliant on large developers building the majority of our homes on large brownfield sites.
“The number of small sites coming forward has halved in the last decade, and we have lost almost a third of all small and medium-sized homebuilders operating in the capital.
“Through my new Small Sites programme, I want to make more public land available to help contribute not only to tackling the housing crisis in London, but also to reinvigorating our small and medium-sized homebuilding sector.”