Greenwich councillors have signed off on plans to increase the amount of money the town hall can charge developers in some parts of the borough.
The council plans to increase its community infrastructure levy (CIL) rates for developers building housing in parts of Greenwich, Woolwich, Abbey Wood and Thamesmead.
But Aidan Smith, the cabinet member for regeneration, said that the council did not have evidence that would justify increasing the CIL in student housing, which is becoming popular with developers.
An independent examiner will now hold a public hearing to decide the final rates.
CIL can be used for projects including transport, community and environmental schemes. In Greenwich, CIL money has been earmarked to pay the borough’s £15 million contribution to the Woolwich Elizabeth Line station, with the bill due to be paid off soon.
The rates were first set in 2015 and have not been updated since, despite the pace of development around the borough. The council has also been criticised for the comparatively small sums it has collected – with the need to pay off the Crossrail bill stopping it from spending money on anything else.
Greenwich proposes that the highest rates – £150 per square metre for 10 homes or more – would be charged around Greenwich and the peninsula and around the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich. This is an increase from the current rate of £95.95.
Rates in the rest of the borough would be £96 – broadly the same as now, but an increase in Abbey Wood and Thamesmead, where developers currently pay a reduced rate of £54.83.
Smaller developments of nine or fewer homes – where builders do not have to provide “affordable” homes – would pay £150 across the whole borough.
Rates for student housing, hotels and supermarkets are not going up.
A number of developers – including Berkeley Homes, which is behind the Royal Arsenal and Kidbrooke Village; Knight Dragon, which is building on the Greenwich Peninsula; and the two developers hoping to build on the Thamesmead Waterfront, Peabody and Lendlease – have filed objections, saying the rates are too high.
But of the 144 responses to a public consultation, just over half disagreed with the new rates, with many saying the rates were too low. One branded the increase “modest and unambitious”, while another said: “They are still not high enough. More money is needed to provide infrastructure to support large residential developments.”
Some comments were classed as agreeing with the new rates despite criticising the council in the strongest language.
“The entire Greenwich borough is becoming an utter shithole and it’s getting worse by the day,” one wrote. “The council seems to be completely unable to collect money for infrastructure needs.”
Another simply said: “About fucking time. Well done missing the building cycle, muppets.”
Some mistakenly thought the levy was a charge on residents rather than developers.
Aidan Smith, the cabinet member for regeneration, told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that just because there were a number of plans to build student housing did not mean the council could increase rates.
“It’s true to say that we’ve received several applications for student development within the borough. No student developments actually been built since around 2012, and that was three years before we adopted CIL,” he said.
“So the fact that we don’t have any recent data for student accommodation makes it difficult to prove that an increase in this rate could be supported and it would be easier for those opposed to us increasing the rates to argue against us doing so, which puts the rest of the review at risk.”
The Greenwich Wire understands that the development Smith referred to is the 280-room Flinders House, just off John Harrison Way, which opened as Scape Greenwich in September 2013. However, three smaller student blocks, of 33, 61 and 88 rooms, have been built in east Greenwich in the years since then.
Recently-approved blocks have been on a far larger scale – at Woolwich Catholic Club (298 rooms), Ravensbourne Wharf (414 rooms) and North Greenwich station (820 rooms).
While there had been a relatively large number of responses to the public consultation, the only people watching the cabinet meeting were council officers – no members of the public showed up.
The proposed rates were laid out in a report for the council by BNP Paribas Real Estate, a property consultancy, while a further report by Inner Circle, another consultancy, predicts the council could earn over £150 million over 15 years.
CIL rates vary across London. Brent collected £26 million in 2022-3 alone through higher rates, compared with just £4.3 million in Greenwich. Projects in Brent include a £6.8 million bridge over the Grand Union Canal in Alperton.
Other councils collect less. Waltham Forest, which charges slightly more than Greenwich, collected £7.3 million; Barking & Dagenham, which charges less on the whole, collected only £2.1 million.
To complicate matters, there are two types of CIL in London – councils across the capital are also responsible for collecting the Mayor’s Community Infrastructure Levy – MCIL – which has been used to pay for the Elizabeth Line and to build up a kitty for Crossrail 2. These rates are set by City Hall and will add to what developers pay.
In an article for The Greenwich Wire, Smith said that Greenwich’s rates were comparable to neighbouring boroughs.
“If you compare the proposed rates with our neighbouring boroughs of Bexley (in 2023 charges ranged from £54.83-£82.24), Bromley (in 2020 charges were £100) and Lewisham (in 2024 charges range £102.97-£147.10), our proposed charges appear to be similar,” he wrote.
“We will be monitoring the progress of different types of development in the borough, including student accommodation, and will consider bringing forward another review, or a partial review of individual charges, for example, student accommodation if we think there is more evidence to support increasing these rates at a future date.”
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