London councils sit on the land, the power and the money. So why can’t they build homes?

In theory, it should be straightforward: appoint an architect, grant planning permission to themselves, and get spades in the ground. And yet, time and again, council-led housebuilding projects descend into farce.

Lambeth Council wasted £59 million on Homes for Lambeth, a council-owned housing company that delivered only a paltry number of homes before the Kerslake Review recommended it be shut down.

Merton Council’s Merantun Development Limited was closed after burning through public money and failing to build a single house.

Now Westminster Council finds itself in similar trouble, having handed over around £40 million to a firm that has since gone bust.

Against this bleak backdrop, only Wandsworth Council — when it was under Conservative control — appears to have genuinely succeeded.

The Nine Elms development delivered thousands of new homes, two new Tube stations, and one of the most ambitious regeneration projects London has seen in a generation.

It created jobs, boosted housing supply, and transformed a former industrial wasteland into a thriving urban district.

So what keeps going wrong elsewhere?

Is it that councillors signing off these schemes simply don’t understand how to structure and enforce major commercial contracts?

Do they believe that handing over vast sums of taxpayers’ money absolves them of the need for rigorous oversight?

Or is the problem more fundamental? that London’s planning and regulatory framework has become so hostile to development that even the politicians who helped design it can no longer navigate it?

Whatever the cause, the outcome is the same: fewer homes, wasted public money, and growing public frustration.

London desperately needs more housing. We need to build in the right places and at densities that make sense for local areas - but above all, we need to build.

Full stop.

If councils cannot navigate the legislative and administrative straitjacket they have created alongside the Mayor of London, then they should step aside and let the private sector do what they clearly cannot.

Because London needs more homes - and it needs them now.

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Harry Todd is a Conservative Party Member and Agent. He has stood for Council and was on the approved Conservative Parliamentary Candidates list.

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