Sadiq Khan should be placed in “special measures” due to the “unacceptably low” amount of affordable housing being built in London, City Hall Conservatives have said.
In a letter issuing the demand to the new Labour Government, Tory assembly member Lord Bailey pointed to new data which showed that progress on the mayor’s latest affordable homes programme has dropped to a near-record low.
The mayor’s office argued that “London is still recovering from the disastrous inheritance from the last Government”, with “major challenges currently facing the sector”.
According to official statistics, work got started under the mayor’s programme on just 150 affordable properties across the whole of Greater London between April and June this year, bringing the total number of starts to 1,927.
The programme, funded using £4bn of Government cash and managed by City Hall, was originally meant to deliver 35,000 affordable homes across the capital. But the target was slashed last year to a range of between 23,900 and 27,200, following a “re-profiling” exercise amidst rising costs.
The scheme has a deadline of March 2026, leaving the Labour mayor with just 21 months to start work on the remaining 21,973 homes required to hit the lower end of the already-reduced target.
It means that Mr Khan is only eight per cent of the way towards meeting that minimum goal, having now used up about a third of the time available since receiving funding for the programme from the Government in July 2023.
Building at or above the rate required to meet the target has however been achieved in the recent past. For example, under the previous affordable housing programme, some 25,658 homes were started between April 2022 and March 2023, and 18,840 were started in the prior 12 months.
Referring to the 150 homes started between April and June this year, Lord Bailey said in his letter to the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner: “These numbers are clearly unacceptably low, and are inconsistent with the housebuilding ambitions of both your department and the manifesto on which the Labour Government was elected last month.
“Over the last eight years, the Mayor of London has consistently demonstrated that he is unable to meet the scale of London’s housing challenges, with the number of new homes built in the capital falling to record lows under Sadiq Khan’s leadership.”
According to the Government’s official measure of overall additional housing supply in England - which covers homes of all kinds, not just those classed as ‘affordable’ - there were significantly more ‘net additional dwellings’ created in London during Sadiq Khan’s first eight years in office (281,302) than were created during Tory mayor Boris Johnson’s eight-year mayoralty (233,185).
However, the number of net additional dwellings in London in 2023/24 has been provisionally recorded as 14,590, which if confirmed would be the lowest for over two decades. Every other English region saw a housing downturn in that same year, but none as dramatic as London.
Lord Bailey continued: “We are, therefore, urging you to use your powers as Secretary of State to place the Mayor of London and the GLA [Greater London Authority] in special measures.
“Without tailored support and additional oversight from your department, sadly it is abundantly clear that Sadiq Khan will not be able to deliver the number of homes London requires, and that targets alone are no longer enough to tackle the scale of the problem.”
A spokeswoman for Mr Khan said: “The mayor has hit every Affordable Homes Programme target he has been set, including the landmark target of building 116,000 new genuinely affordable homes in the capital through the last Affordable Homes Programme, while the previous Government failed to hit its national target.
“Despite a doubling of affordable housing completions in 2023-2024 compared to when Sadiq was first elected, these latest figures underline the major challenges currently facing the sector, including high construction costs, increased borrowing costs and the need to address building safety issues.
“The fact remains that London is still recovering from the disastrous inheritance from the last Government, which scrapped housing targets and brought housebuilding to its knees through a combination of underinvestment, policy uncertainty and indifference.
“The mayor is determined to build the genuinely affordable homes that London needs and is already working hand-in-hand with the new pro-home building Government to ensure London’s affordable housing delivery target is met, helping to build a fairer London for all.”
In addition to the 150 homes started under the programme between April and June, a further 176 affordable properties were started through separate mayoral schemes - though they will not contribute to the main programme’s target.
Mayoral sources also pointed out that there are other affordable homes being delivered in London that aren’t funded by the mayor, but he still supports their delivery via his planning policies.
