The Mayor of London has been told to “get a handle” on the capital’s housing crisis as progress on building affordable homes continued to stagnate.
By Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter
The Mayor of London has been told to “get a handle” on the capital’s housing crisis as progress on building affordable homes continued to stagnate.
Data from the Greater London Authority (GLA) shows that developers made just 1,239 starts on affordable homes from April to September this year, compared to 3,991 in the whole of the last financial year.
Earlier this year the GLA and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) agreed to lower London’s target for the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) for 2021-2026 by over a fifth to between 17,800 and 19,000 starts. But with just 6,370 affordable homes started since the AHP was signed off in 2023, there are major doubts as to whether City Hall will hit the revised target.
In order to meet the Mayor’s promise, developers will need to start on at least 11,430 affordable dwellings before March 2026.
Hina Bokhari, who leads the Liberal Democrat group on the London Assembly, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “Londoners are desperate for affordable homes – it’s the number one thing most people want the Mayor to deliver.
“But under his watch, affordable housebuilding has dropped off a cliff and the pipeline for new homes has dried up.
“The latest stats are even worse than anticipated and show that for all his promises and targets, the Mayor hasn’t got a handle on this crisis and doesn’t have a clue how he’s going to solve it.”
Zoë Garbett, a London Assembly Member for the Green Party, added: “Building and buying more social homes is the only way out of our housing emergency.
“But even the Mayor’s very limited affordable homes programme is only crawling forward, barely making a dent in his own much-reduced targets let alone the ever-growing social housing waiting list.”
Four boroughs – Richmond upon Thames, Lambeth, Hackney and Merton – have seen no affordable home starts being made at all since April. Ealing has seen the highest number this year, with 235, followed by Sutton with 224.
The number of affordable homes that have finished being built also appears to be declining. In total, just 2,904 dwellings have been completed over the first six months of the 2025-26 period. In 2024-25, the figure was 11,636, and the previous year saw 10,949 completions.
The GLA figures, released on Tuesday (November 11), come just weeks after ministers struck a deal with the Mayor of London to slash affordability requirements for developers.
Builders will now be promised a fast-tracked application if they agree to construct 20 per cent of affordable housing in their plans, rather than the previous figure of 35 per cent.
Previously, Deputy Mayor for Housing Tom Copley has blamed a myriad factors for the slow progress on affordable housing, including delays caused by the Building Safety Regulator and the failure of former Housing Secretary Michael Gove to sign off the latest AHP until July 2023.
In September, he told the London Assembly Housing Committee: “We are in an enormously challenging economic context, with some factors affecting London specifically.
“These include record material costs partly due to the war in Ukraine, increased labour costs due to Brexit, and 14 years of disinterest in affordable and social housing from the last government, and in the social housing sector in general. High interest rates have affected both supply, in terms of the cost of borrowing, and buyers, in terms of mortgage costs.”
Sem Meoma, Labour’s spokesperson for Housing on the London Assembly, said the responsibility lay with the previous government and private developers sitting on empty land.
She told the LDRS: “We’re now seeing the results of previous government’s continual freezing and scrapping of funding for affordable housing. This has been made worse by the increasing cost of materials and labour.
“The Mayor of London and London boroughs have a good record of delivering affordable and social homes directly, so the allocation of this funding needs to be prioritised. Private developers also need to crack on with building out what they’ve already planned too.”
An MHCLG spokesperson said: “We will leave no stone unturned to build the 1.5 million homes this country desperately needs and restore the dream of homeownership in London and across the country.
“That’s why we have recently introduced emergency measures to ramp up housebuilding in London, on top of major planning changes to get developers building and our huge £39billion investment in social and affordable housing.”
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London told the LDRS: “It is encouraging that there has been an increase in social and affordable housebuilding in the last year. The Mayor is committed to building on the progress which has already been made in the capital, with more new council homes started in London than at any time since the 1970s and, prior to the pandemic, more new homes completed in London than any time since the 1930s.
“But there is still a lot more work to do to tackle London’s urgent housing crisis. The Mayor has been clear that there is a perfect storm impacting housebuilding in London due to a combination of the disastrous legacy from the previous government, high interest rates, the rising cost of construction materials, the impact of the pandemic and ongoing consequences of Brexit.
“That is why Sadiq is continuing to act, backed with a record £11.7 billion government investment. The Mayor is taking hard decisions to boost housebuilding including actively exploring development on the green belt and working closely with the Government on a bold package of new measures to accelerate the delivery of affordable homes in London.”
