City Hall housebuilding plummets to lowest level in four years

London-wide Assembly Member Andrew Boff has today called for the Mayor to "turbo-charge" City Hall's housebuilding after new figures revealed the number homes started fell to the lowest level in four years.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) only started building 272 new homes between April and June 2021 – the lowest number of housing starts in the first quarter of the financial year since 2017 when the GLA started 162 homes. In comparison, the GLA started building twice as many homes (548) during the same period in 2020 despite construction halting due to lockdown. The latest figures are also significantly down compared to the 2,672 and 1,097 homes started in the first financial quarter of 2019 and 2018 respectively.

The Mayor has less than two years to start building 43,450 new homes to complete the government-funded £4.82 billion Affordable Homes Programme on time. To meet the deadline, the Mayor needs to start building nearly 22,000 homes a year for the next two years – but Khan only started an average of 13,017 a year during his first term.

Andrew Boff AM, GLA Conservative Housing Spokesman, commented: “These figures should be setting off alarm bells in the Mayor’s office. City Hall has two years to start building 43,450 new homes to complete the Affordable Homes Programme on time. So it is unnerving that housebuilding plummeted to the lowest level since 2017 with only 272 homes started in three months this year.

“While the first quarter of yearly housing figures tends to be low with most homes being started later in the year, this number is exceptionally low – especially considering the huge number of homes the Mayor still needs to start. Unless the Mayor turbo charges City Hall’s efforts, he will have squandered the opportunity the government’s unprecedented housing grant has given him to help thousands of Londoners onto the housing ladder.”