Technologies of Mobilising Consensus: The Politics of Producing Affordable Housing Plans for the London Legacy Development Corporation’s Planning Boundary

ABSTRACT

Powerful arguments have emerged that English planning is currently characterised by technologies of governing that generate consensus over top-down neoliberal plans. For post-politics scholars, this dynamic has been conceptualised as post-politics. Using the case of affordable housing planning within the London Legacy Development Corporation, I explore these two perspectives. I find that affordable housing planning within the London Legacy Development Corporation has indeed been shaped by techniques of governing which aim to generate consensus over this Corporation’s affordable housing plans. However, drawing from a power-based understanding of politics, I argue that these efforts represent political techniques of governing.

KEYWORDS:

• LLDC
• politics
• power
• planning
• consensus
• affordable housing

Acknowledgements

The author like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this paper, as well as the editors of Planning Theory & Practice, for their thoughtful comments on previous versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Within the UK, affordable housing is a term which encompasses three very different housing tenures: (1) social-rented housing, which is typically owned by local councils and private registered providers. Social housing is widely regarded as the only housing tenure that is actually affordable to working-class and low-income groups; (2) affordable-rented housing, which is let by local councils or private registered providers. Under this tenure, rents can range from anywhere between social-rented levels to up to 80 percent of local market rates. This has prompted strong concerns that affordable-rented housing is in fact unaffordable for those eligible for social housing (Hodkinson & Robbins, 2013); and (3) intermediate housing, which covers homes for sale and rent that are provided at a cost above social rent but below local market rates, subject to the criteria outlined above with regards to affordable-rented housing.

2. LLDC (2014e, 8) notes that national budgets and local authority grants for affordable housing have been heavily reduced “and as a result a new model of affordable housing provision has been established to meet the housing needs without the reliance on public subsidy or grant”. This meant that affordable housing delivery costs were expected to “be met by borrowing on future rental receipts and existing [housing] assets” (LLDC 2014e, 8).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economics and Social Research Council [grant number 1328208]; Economic and Social Research Council [1328208].

Notes on contributors

Cecil Sagoe

Cecil Sagoe is a Doctoral Graduate from the Geography department at University College London. His research interests lie in the intersecting areas of housing, planning, communities, and politics.