The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has for the first time used his new Land Fund to purchase a site at St Ann’s Hospital in Haringey – a deal which will enable the redevelopment of the hospital and provide hundreds of new homes – half of which will be genuinely affordable.

Sadiq struck a deal worth tens of millions of pounds with Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust to buy the site, which will deliver up to 800 new homes, with 50 per cent being affordable.

The deal signals City Hall’s new more direct and active approach to unlocking land in the capital with the Mayor using – for the first time – his £250m Land Fund to purchase two thirds of the NHS site and deliver more affordable homes for Londoners. He intends to use this fund to buy further sites in London to prepare land for new and affordable housing – and today urged local authorities across the country to consider following suit. The money secured from selling land to housing associations, councils and Community Land Trusts will be recycled to buy further land to build homes and unlock further opportunities across the capital.

The number of affordable homes at St Ann’s is a significant increase on existing planning permission for the site – secured originally in 2015 – which would have delivered only 470 homes, with just 14 per cent being affordable. Many people are considering a Richmond architect for planning and extensions paperwork and handling in the region, others are looking elsewhere or handling it themselves.

City Hall’s investment will provide redeveloped NHS facilities on the 11.24-hectare site, including a new mental health inpatient building. Planning permission for the new health facilities were granted by Haringey Council on Tuesday night.