Daylight and sunlight for co-living schemes is assessed more closely than for almost any other housing type in London. Because residents live in compact private rooms and rely on shared kitchens and lounges, planning officers expect robust evidence that every room — private and communal — receives adequate natural light.
This guide explains how London Plan Policy H16, the Greater London Authority's shared-living guidance, BRE BR 209 (2022) and BS EN 17037 fit together, and what a co-living daylight and sunlight assessment needs to show in 2026.
What counts as co-living, and why daylight matters to Policy H16
The London Plan 2021 deals with co-living under Policy H16, which covers large-scale purpose-built shared living: non-self-contained housing generally made up of at least 50 private rooms alongside communal kitchens, lounges and workspaces. In February 2024 the GLA adopted its Large-scale Purpose-built Shared Living London Plan Guidance, which sets out how schemes should be designed and managed, including benchmarks for private rooms of roughly 18–27 square metres.
That guidance expects private units to demonstrate adequate daylight, sunlight, ventilation, outlook and privacy. In practice, officers and GLA case teams ask for a daylight and sunlight assessment covering two things: the effect of the new building on neighbouring homes, and the quality of light inside the proposed rooms and shared spaces.
Daylight and sunlight tests that apply to co-living schemes
Impact on neighbours: BRE BR 209 (2022)
Co-living buildings are typically dense, mid- to high-rise urban infill, so the neighbouring-amenity tests in BRE BR 209 (2022) — vertical sky component (VSC), no-sky line (NSL) and annual probable sunlight hours (APSH) — apply exactly as they would for a conventional residential scheme. Our guide to the BRE 0.8-times rule explains the headline test: where a neighbour's VSC falls below 27% and below 0.8 times its former value, the loss is likely to be noticeable.
Light inside the scheme: BS EN 17037 and target illuminance
For proposed accommodation, BR 209 (2022) points to BS EN 17037 and its target illuminance method. Assessors model whether each room can achieve the recommended illuminance across a set fraction of the reference plane for at least half of daylight hours. Two features of co-living make this harder than it sounds:
- Small, deep private rooms. An 18–27 square metre room with a single window and a bed, desk and kitchenette zone can struggle if the plan is deep and the window head is low.
- Single-aspect layouts. Double-loaded corridors produce long runs of single-aspect rooms; those facing north, or facing into a courtyard or a neighbouring facade, are the usual failures.
Communal kitchens and lounges are not an afterthought
Because residents' private rooms are compact, shared kitchens, dining rooms and lounges do much of the work of a conventional living room — and reviewers increasingly expect them to be assessed like main living spaces rather than circulation. A basement games room may be acceptable; a windowless main communal kitchen usually is not. Sunlight matters too: BR 209 recommends checking APSH for the main occupied spaces and overshadowing of any shared courtyards and roof terraces on 21 March.
Designing a co-living scheme that passes first time
- Test the massing early. Run VSC and BS EN 17037 checks at feasibility stage, before the room count is fixed — retrofitting daylight into a fixed layout is expensive.
- Watch room depth against window head height. Shallow rooms with tall glazing outperform deep rooms with wide but short windows.
- Place communal rooms on the best corners. Dual-aspect, south- or west-facing shared lounges lift the whole scheme's amenity case.
- Limit north-facing single-aspect rooms and avoid facing habitable windows tightly across lightwells.
- Document the trade-offs. Where an urban site cannot meet every default target, BR 209 Appendix F allows locally derived alternative targets — but the justification must be evidenced, not asserted.
Outside London, co-living is emerging in cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol. There is no direct equivalent of Policy H16, but local-plan amenity policies and the NPPF still require adequate natural light, and the same BRE and BS EN 17037 evidence is the accepted way to demonstrate it.
What a co-living daylight and sunlight report should contain
Whether the scheme is in Shoreditch or Salford, officers reviewing a co-living application will expect the daylight and sunlight report to cover:
- A 3D model of the proposal and its context, with the sources of survey and massing data stated;
- VSC, NSL and APSH results for every affected neighbouring habitable room, benchmarked against BR 209 (2022), with any transgressions explained rather than buried in appendices;
- BS EN 17037 target illuminance results for the proposed private rooms, reported room by room — not as a single scheme-wide average that can mask a poor north-facing cluster;
- Assessment of the main communal kitchens, lounges and workspaces as occupied habitable spaces;
- Overshadowing analysis of shared external amenity areas on 21 March, showing the proportion receiving at least two hours of sun;
- Where defaults cannot be met, a reasoned Appendix F justification tied to the site's urban context — mirror-image massing, established street enclosure, or borough-specific guidance.
A report structured this way answers the questions officers actually ask, which shortens negotiation and reduces the risk of a committee deferral over amenity evidence.
How Fortress Associates can help
Fortress Associates prepares daylight and sunlight reports to BRE BR 209 (2022) and BS EN 17037 for co-living, build-to-rent and conventional residential schemes across the UK. Reports are typically delivered in 4–5 working days with no advance payment. You can also explore our other planning report services or contact us to discuss a scheme at feasibility stage.
Sources & further reading
Need help with a UK planning project?
Fixed-fee daylight & sunlight reports and Building Regulations drawings — delivered in 4–5 working days, no advance payment — plus flood risk assessments, air quality assessments, energy statements and sustainability statements for planning applications across the UK.
Request a free quote