A war of words has broken out on Thursday between London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak, with the prime minister accused of talking “desperate nonsense”.
The government yesterday announced it was investing £200m into building new homes on brownfield sites in the capital. Sunak went on the offensive, accusing the mayor of London of “failing to deliver” the homes London needs.
Sunak said he was “stepping in” to try to sort out London’s housing crisis blaming Khan for sky-high property prices destroying the dreams of many Londoners to own their own home.
The PM announced a review of the London Plan to identify new sites to build tens of thousands new homes in the capital.
He also gave the mayor of London an autumn deadline – three to four months – to agree progress towards changes to the city’s long-term masterplan or housing secretary Michael Gove may use powers to intervene.
Sunak said: “The mayor has failed to deliver the homes that London needs. This has driven up house prices and made it harder for families to get on the housing ladder in the first place.
“That is why we are stepping in today to boost house building and make home ownership a reality again for people across this great city.”
Sunak also announced:
+ £150m of funding will go directly to boroughs, by-passing City Hall, to prepare brownfield sites for housing, including by putting in better infrastructure such as roads and green spaces
+ £53m for the Old Oak West project in west London to deliver more than 9,000 new homes, and aim to support 12,000 jobs
+ Confirmed rules on the use of £1 billion for affordable housing will be relaxed so it can be used for regeneration of old social housing estates
+ Promised that “beautiful, well connected homes” will be built with “landscaped parkland” as part of the Docklands 2.0 development which could create up to 65,000 homes across several boroughs including in Thamesmead, Becton and Silvertown
However, City Hall responded strongly to Sunak’s attack on the mayor of London’s housing record.
Khan commented: “This is pathetic gesture politics by the Tories in an attempt to distract from their out-of-touch government’s inaction on the mortgage crisis. Londoners won’t be fooled in the slightest.
“The Tories have a miserable record of continually blocking badly needed new housing in London across the board while Labour in London has exceeded the Government’s own affordable housing targets, delivered higher council home building than the rest of England combined and built more homes of any kind than since the 1930s.”
The London Plan puts a target of 52,000 new homes a year for the city, which is not being met.
Darren Rodwell, Executive member for Regeneration, Housing and Planning at London Councils, said: “Emergency action is needed to ensure that affordable housing is available to all those who need it.
“London boroughs are playing our part – over the last year we started the highest number of new council-built homes since the 1970s.
“But we can’t do it alone. Raising Local Housing Allowance, enabling a broader range of housing to be acquired by councils and improving co-ordination across Government would be game-changing.”
Apart from a dip during the pandemic year of 2019/20, the number of affordable homes started in London has increased each year since Khan became mayor.
A total of 25,658 affordable homes were started in the most recent year, 2022/23.
A spokesman for the mayor said: “The government have relied almost entirely on London’s housing success to meet their national targets.
“Under Sadiq London has delivered 10,000 more total homes a year on average than under Boris Johnson.
“We’ve exceeded the affordable home building targets the Government set – building more homes of any kind than since the 1930s, and starting a golden era of council homes building, with the most started since the 1970s. Sadiq is building a fairer, better and green London for everyone.”
Since Khan became mayor in 2016, the annual affordable housing starts have been: 7,416 (2016/17), 12,555 (17/18), 14,544 (18/19), 17,256 (19/20), 13,324 (20/21) and 18,840 (21/22).
The best achieved by Boris Johnson in his eight years as mayor was 16,351 affordable starts in 2010/11.
But while starts are up, Khan has yet to match the 17,875 affordable homes completed in a single year by previous mayor Boris Johnson in 2014/15.
Khan has blamed Brexit and Covid for causing delays, supply shortages and workforce problems in the housebuilding industry.
However, the number of affordable completions has increased annually under Khan, from 4,934 in 2016/17 (beating the 4,881 in Mr Johnson’s final year as mayor), 5,355 in 2017/18, 7,544 in 2018/19, 7,775 in 2019/20, 9,051 on 2020/21, 10,323 in 2021/22 and 13,954 in the most recent financial year.
Between 2015/16 and March this year, 116,782 affordable homes were started in London – hitting the government’s revised target of 116,000. This included 7,189 started in 2015/16 when Johnson was still mayor.
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