Desperate times breed desperate measures, so it’s no surprise to see a floundering Rishi Sunak making spurious claims about housebuilding in London, while offering nothing for Londoners struggling with high housing costs.
There is a housing crisis in our city and Londoners are suffering. We need a government which is prepared to work with the elected Mayor to help fix it, but the Conservatives have shown themselves time and again to be blockers, not builders.
They’ve refused to take the simple steps we know would help, and often make things worse.
Sunak has caved in to Conservative backbenchers to water down his own national housing targets to build 300,000 homes a year, which now won’t be met. Developers rightly described it as a “capitulation to the NIMBY lobby”.
While Londoners struggle with sky-high rent and mortgage payments, ministers continue to block my calls to step in
Government ministers have meddled and delayed individual building projects in our city, intervening to block major new developments such as the 351-home development on a car park at Cockfosters in Enfield, or 443 homes on the riverfront in Lambeth. Each of these was to include 40 per cent much-needed affordable housing.
More housebuilding needs new transport links, but the Conservatives have so far refused to back proposals like extending the Docklands Light Railway to Beckton Riverside and Thamesmead, a new station at Beam Park in east London — which would be fully funded by City Hall — or the extension of the Bakerloo line, which would unlock thousands of new homes.
And while Londoners struggle with sky-high rent and mortgage payments, ministers continue to block my calls to step in to halt the risk of repossessions and give renters breathing space from unaffordable private rents.
While the Conservatives obstruct homes and help for Londoners, I’ve been getting on with the job our city elected me to do, with housing a top priority. The housing crisis in London is decades in the making and it won’t be fixed overnight, but we’ve made big steps in the right direction.
And because Londoners know that it’s not just how many homes we build but what we build which matters, my laser focus has been on council and genuinely affordable homes, not luxury flats for foreigners to buy as investment that are left empty.
I grew up on a council estate and know the importance of social housing, but it’s something that too many Tory ministers just don’t get.
Since I became Mayor, I’ve made it my mission to back more council and genuinely affordable homes. Working with London’s boroughs, I’ve spearheaded our city’s council housing comeback, driven by initiatives such as my £1bn Building Council Homes for Londoners grant funding programme, a £10m Homebuilding Capacity Fund, and my Right to Buy-back programme, supporting boroughs to turbo-charge delivery after decades of decline.
The results have shown the pent-up appetite of London’s boroughs to build. We’ve built or started work on more than 23,000 new council homes since 2018, reaching the highest level since the Seventies. Last year alone we started work on more than 10,000 new council homes in London, double what the rest of the country put together managed in the previous year.
Since I took office, we’ve more than trebled the number of genuinely affordable homes being built in our city compared to my predecessor, smashing every target the Government has set me in the process. But this progress isn’t enough for our city, and I won’t rest until every Londoner has a decent, affordable home. If Rishi Sunak wants to help, there’s some straightforward steps he can take.
Give the go-ahead for the new infrastructure that would unlock thousands of new homes across the capital, building on the progress we’re already making in areas such as the Royal Docks, Barking Riverside and Old Oak common.
Grant our city the funding it needs to keep building the homes Londoners need most, including the £4.9 billion a year that independent experts say is required to build the social and affordable housing London needs.
And in the meantime, act to give Londoners breathing space in the face of the immediate crisis of high housing costs, with help for mortgage-owners and a freeze on private sector rents.
Our city’s housing crisis won’t be fixed until every part of government puts its shoulder to the wheel. The action I’ve taken from City Hall is bearing fruit, it’s time that the government backed our city too and helped me build a better London for everyone.
