New London Architecture (NLA), the capital’s think tank on the city’s built environment, has announced a series of findings from their insight study into the London housing shortage. The research gathered by former development director at Peabody, Claire Bennie, has formed the basis of their forthcoming exhibition New Ideas for Housing. The exhibition examines London’s housing market, past and present, as well as the results of an extensive global ideas competition, set-up with the Mayor of London to tackle the shortfall.

Current statistics show that the capital’s population has now hit record numbers and is set to keep rising. It is estimated that we need 40,000 new homes every year for 20 years to deal with the current population increase and a further 9,000 a year, on top, just to catch up on the deficit. Current delivery of new homes stands at 20-25,000 a year, which means the delivery of new homes needs to at least double from its current rate.

Earlier this year, London’s population passed its previous peak of 8.6m people, and future projections suggest there will be 9m people in London by 2020, 10m by 2030 and 11m by 2050, adding nearly 70,000 people and 34,000 jobs every year.