Estates Gazette: "It's time to get serious about suburban densification"

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"Quod, with Shelter, have just produced a report into London’s land stock available for residential building. While the report is a good overview, it fails to grasp the potential of suburban densification.

"If the number of homes in these low density suburbs could be incrementally increased by 10% (still well below the current average London density), it would deliver around 75,000 homes."

When Brownfield Isn’t Enough, Quod/Shelter, pp29

"An increase of 10% is hardly ambitious and suggests simply building more houses in back gardens or, as the report suggests, subdividing existing houses leading to no net gain in floorspace.

"Other proposals suggested such as new towns are proposed without regard to the gigantic infrastructure cost they would require. Regional and suburban rail routes are already at capacity, and would require new lines – costing many billions – to create satellite towns. And for all the Ebeneezer Howard inspired hope of autarkic [autonomous?] new towns, the truth is they will be largely dormitory suburbs for existing employment centres in London, making this infrastructure necessary.

"Back of envelope calculations here, but surely it would be more efficient to redevelop suburban houses near London stations.

"... It might be hard to stomach politically, but for those examining the potential for land use suburban densification should be considered as something more than subdivision and houses in gardens. If people want houses with large gardens, they should be prepared to move to outside of London dormitory towns with their longer commuters rather than forcing ten times the number to either do this, or live in increasingly cramped conditions in house shares that are fast becoming room-shares."