Mid-year update 2021: London

London mid-year report

Six months to July 2021

By Julian Roper, Regional Sales Director and Rob Warrington, Key Account Manager

We certainly see no evidence that the forthcoming regulatory changes through the introduction of the Building Safety Bill is having any impact on developers' desire to build high quality new homes in central London.

Instead, LABC Warranty has seen an increasing appetite for earlier engagement with developers working on taller and more complex projects. There is a growing awareness that our technical expertise can add value from a project's initial design stages. Conversely, this early engagement enables us to build a very comprehensive picture of what is being proposed, what the complexities are and consequently identifying risks at the design stage so we can mitigate these when quoting for work. It may be a cliche but this is a "win win" scenario.

Across London we are continuing to see a lot of activity with local authority development teams and various joint ventures to provide new homes for sale as well as social homes. Our connection with Local Authority Building Control (LABC) means we are well placed to get involved, and again, our early engagement is proving invaluable to fully assessing the risks at the pre-planning stage.

Examples of developments in the region

Berkeley Homes

West End Gate, Marylebone

Described by developer Berkeley as "a collection of Manhattan one, two, three and four bedroom apartments", this new Marylebone residence comes with 24-hour concierge, private cinema room, gym, spa and swimming pool.

​​​​​​​LABC Warranty is involved in two major phases, including the development's 30-storey, 315-unit Westmark tower under our Major Projects Service.

Durkan Limited

Lisgar Terrace, Hammersmith & Fulham

Southern Housing Group built in 1928 to provide homes for those who needed it the most. The Group appointed Durkan Limited to undertake a refurbishment and remodeling of Lisgar Terrace to bring the development two, three and four bedroom family homes up to modern standards.

LABC Warranty have been involved with Durkan through the entire five phases and eight years of the works.

A2Dominion Group

Boston Road, Hanwell, Ealing

This scheme will offer 360 quality homes for affordable rent, shared ownership and sale, just minutes away from Hanwell train station.

Affordable housing is a large part of the scheme, making up 35% of the total apartments and 37.6% of the total area of the development. The scheme offers a range of studios and one, two and three bedroom apartments. It includes garden terraces, children's play spaces and rooftop gardens.

The next six months

We expect major projects to continue in London as both we and our customers look to work our way through the new Building Safety Bill regulations as they come into force. Some customers are indicating that they will use the Local Authority for building control, which puts us in a strong position to become involved in some exciting new projects.

We believe mixed-tenure developments - mostly new homes for sale, social housing and commercial units - will continue to work through the planning and development pipeline, with large housing associations and joint ventures with local authority development arms looking to revitalise the housing stock across the capital.

There was concern in some circles that following the pandemic lockdowns, city living would be less desirable than it once was and demand would fall. We certainly don't see any evidence of this in London. The construction industry remains buoyant here and we expect that to continue.

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and would like to work with LABC Warranty?

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