Analysis

Kensington Forum Hotel approval puts onus on affordability

By 2019-06-27T16:00:00

Kensington Forum Hotel

London mayor green lights controversial scheme after social housing is tripled.

The pair had their proposals to replace the current 1970s monolith with a new 749-room hotel, 340 serviced apartments and 46 homes rejected by Kensington and Chelsea council in September 2018, in a planning meeting that lasted more than six hours. Part of the reason for this was that only 20 of the homes would be affordable.

London mayor Sadiq Khan called in the scheme in November and the council started working up a legal challenge.

This week, Khan approved the plans – but not before insisting that the developers up the number of homes to 62 and make all of them available at social rent levels.

So is this setting a precedent for all future schemes that come in front of the mayor?

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