Sadiq Khan on track to miss affordable housing target

Sadiq Khan is on track to miss his affordable housing deadline after new figures revealed that City Hall has only started building 4,468 affordable homes in the past nine months. This is only 43% of the Mayor’s 10,300 housing starts target for the financial year 2020/21. To meet the target, City Hall would have to start building 5,832 more homes in just three months.

The Mayor received an unprecedented £4.82 billion government grant to start building 116,000 homes by 2023. After nearly five years, Khan has only started 56,239 (48%). To meet the 2023 deadline, Khan needs to start over 23,000 per year.

Andrew Boff AM, GLA Conservative Housing Spokesman, commented: “These are yet another set of deeply disappointing housing statistics which demonstrates that the Mayor is simply failing to get London building. “To meet his housing programme’s deadline, the Mayor needs to start building over 23,000 affordable homes per year. Yet in the first nine months of this financial year, Khan has only managed a mere 4,468 housing starts. This is nowhere near City Hall’s target for this year or the number of homes needed to complete the programme.

“Sadiq Khan’s continued failure to treat housebuilding as a sprint rather than a marathon means homeownership is becoming even more of an impossible dream for millions of Londoners.”