Inside the Draft London Plan with Dominic Grace

In this episode of Prop Views, Nick Cuff and Oli Lowrie are joined by Dominic Grace to unpack three of the summer's biggest property stories. They start with Sadiq Khan's draft London Plan, debating whether its shorter length makes it bolder or simply more prescriptive, and dig into the housing targets, density matrix and affordable housing thresholds that will shape the capital for the next twenty years. From there, they turn to Prologis's recommended £14 billion takeover of Segro, the UK's largest REIT, and what it says about the shrinking pool of listed real estate businesses. 

Finally, they assess Angela Rayner's return to the housing brief, her early decisions on major schemes, and whether she has the appetite for the radical intervention the sector says it needs. A candid, occasionally blunt conversation about what it actually takes to get Britain building.


KEY TAKEAWAYS

Sadiq Khan's draft London Plan, published 16 July, is nearly half the length of the 2021 version but Oli Lowrie argues it is more prescriptive, not less, particularly on building heights and density

The plan targets 558,000 new homes and reintroduces density matrices tied to height, with a baseline of four to nine storeys across most of the city and 100 metre towers permitted in only 17 locations

Dominic Grace calls the plan a "pathetic effort" for a market in crisis, arguing it needs radical intervention rather than incremental tweaks

Modelling referenced in the episode suggests only around 23 per cent of scenarios stack up financially once affordable housing requirements are applied, with a potential £28.3 billion funding gap for affordable housing delivery

Prologis has agreed a recommended £14 billion takeover of Segro, creating a combined business with roughly £269 billion of assets under management and expanding Prologis's European footprint by 47 per cent

The deal highlights how few listed UK real estate businesses remain, with private equity increasingly stepping in to fill the gap

Angela Rayner's return as housing secretary gets a mixed scorecard from the hosts, who cover her early decisions including consent for the Truman Brewery redevelopment and rejection of 3,500 homes and a stadium at Ebbsfleet over safety concerns

The episode ends on a rare positive note, with Building Safety Act gateway approval rates now at 91 per cent, up from around 25 to 30 per cent in the early years


 BEST MOMENTS

"I'd liken it to a lady who, in polite society, just fainted in an Edwardian parlour, and someone gets out the smelling salts. What we actually need is a defibrillator, wired up to the mains, to shock the system back into delivering housing." — Dominic Grace on the draft London Plan

"I don't think it is bold. I think it's kind of more prescriptive. This version of government finds writing a plan that's pro development quite hard to be pro developer." — Oli Lowrie

"It's extraordinary how little we really understand about that world. When something like this happens, it's a bit of a jolt." — Dominic Grace on the Prologis and Segro deal

"The Building Safety Act approval rate is at 91 per cent. It was 25 or 30 per cent for the first couple of years. That's basically a coin toss. Now it's up at 91 per cent and it's happening faster." — Oli Lowrie