Status and purpose

This paper sets out a policy position on affordable workspace for artists, makers and designers, written from thirty years of providing it. The views are my own, formed in practice rather than in committee, and they come from Second Floor Studios & Arts, which I founded and co-direct. It welcomes draft London Plan Policy GLE7, then proposes a stronger, standalone policy and specific amendments to GLE7.

It draws on the thirty years since I founded Second Floor Studios & Arts in 1997: owned space at Deptford Foundry on a 250-year lease, a twenty-year Section 106 lease at Wembley Park, and 21 new purpose-built studios opening in 2027 inside the Grade II listed Old Town Hall in Woolwich. I set out the argument more fully in my essay The Key in the Lock.

The paper has three uses:

•       a standing statement of what I mean by "genuinely affordable" and what I ask of planning, funding and oversight bodies

•       the basis for a consultation response to the draft London Plan

•       a model policy that boroughs can adapt for their Local Plans and affordable workspace strategies

Its central claim is that affordable studio space is civic infrastructure. It should be defined by what its users earn, held permanently outside the speculative market, and protected in planning with the same seriousness as affordable housing.

Summary of recommendations

GLE7 is a welcome step, but it defines affordability as a discount on the market it is meant to correct, and it leaves the standard and timing of delivery unspecified. I recommend twelve changes.

1.     Define affordability by income, not by discount. Set a maximum rent per square foot from what end-users earn, using the Herbert Affordability Formula. A market discount may be a secondary check, never the definition.

2.     Make permanence the rule. Secure artists' and makers' workspace in perpetuity. Where that is shown to be unviable, require at least 25 years, not 15, with a clear route to permanence.

3.     Prefer ownership and long leases held by specialist providers. Freehold transfer or leases of 125+ years to not-for-profit providers should be the preferred way to discharge obligations.

4.     Accredit providers properly. Boroughs should publish a list of accredited affordable workspace providers, tested on purpose, rent, allocation, security, track record and transparency, and should treat an obligation as discharged only when the space goes to a provider on it. A commercial operator discounting its own market rate does not qualify.

5.     Require turnkey delivery. Affordable workspace secured by Section 106 should be handed over fitted out to the provider's written specification and ready to occupy, not as bare shell and core for the provider to complete.

6.     Put providers in at the start. Engage an accredited provider from pre-application, RIBA Stages 1–2, name them in the application, and agree heads of terms before permission. First contact at RIBA Stage 4 or later is not compliance.

7.     Stop treating meanwhile use as affordable workspace. Temporary space should not count towards obligations, and should never override re-provision duties.

8.     Protect existing studios. Extend re-provision duties to all artists' workspace lost to redevelopment, at equal or better affordability, tenure and size.

9.     Ring-fence payments in lieu. Off-site money should go into borough funds that capitalise permanent space with proven providers, with published spending and delivery.

10.  Count all occupancy costs. Service charges, fit-out and business rates sit inside the affordability cap, not on top of it.

11.  Recognise health and wellbeing value. Treat studios as social infrastructure and invite health and care commissioners to co-fund space used for social prescribing and arts therapy.

12.  Independent oversight. Publish annual, independently audited data on what affordable workspace has actually been delivered, at what rent and for how long, including by GLA-funded bodies.