You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Housing starts figures reveal ‘scale of challenge’ in London after ‘perfect storm’
The London mayor’s office has said it missed its housing starts targets due to a “perfect storm in housebuilding”, after new figures revealed the capital remains some way off its affordable housing goals.
Housing starts figures reveal ‘scale of challenge’ in London after ‘perfect storm’ #UKhousingThe London mayor’s office has said it missed its housing starts targets due to a “perfect storm in housebuilding” #UKhousingThe latest data comes as the London mayor’s housebuilding target was reduced earlier this year, meaning the authority now has target of starting 17,800 homes under its Affordable Homes Programme 2021-26 (AHP).
Yet with under a year left to run, more than 12,000 of these builds are not yet underway, according to the London Assembly’s annual affordable housing monitor.
Work has started on just 5,188 homes, or 29% of the target. Last year, work started on 3,991 homes, which was higher than the previous year, but still the second-lowest on record and far below the 25,658 in 2022-23.
Read more
Just 871 homes have been completed in the current funding cycle, and 35% of homes started under the previous AHP 2016-23 are not yet built.
However, the Greater London Authority (GLA) is on track to exceed its target for at least 60% of homes under the AHP 2021-26 to be for social rent.
Currently, 84% of starts are for social rent, with 4,612 social rent starts across all GLA-funded programmes from April 2023 to March 2025.
Overall, in 2023-24 the net addition to affordable housing stock in London was 7,674. This is far below the GLA’s estimates that the city needs 42,841 affordable homes each year to meet need.
“We are far beyond a housing crisis – this is a housing emergency. These figures lay bare the scale of the challenge the mayor must urgently confront”, said Zoë Garbett, chair of the housing committee at the London Assembly.
“The gap between what’s being delivered and what’s desperately needed is incredibly concerning,” she added.
Housing starts in London have been falling for a while amid multiple pressures including post-2010 grant cuts, which led to a sharp drop in social rent homes, as well as the cost of development, building safety and stock improvement works.
Commenting on the assembly’s report, a spokesperson for the mayor said Londoners are suffering the consequences of a “perfect storm in housebuilding” created by the last government’s “horrendous legacy”.
It pointed to a lack of national funding, high interest rates, spiralling building costs, delays from bodies like the Building Safety Regulator and the lasting impact of Brexit.
“The mayor has made tackling this crisis a priority since he took office, and despite these challenges the highest number of affordable homes at social rent levels in a decade were completed last year”.
The mayor’s office insisted the city is seeing “green shoots of growth”, with a rise of almost 70% in the past year.
The report also reveals the boroughs that built the most, and least, affordable homes. The borough with the highest number of GLA-funded affordable starts was Greenwich at 991 starts.
This was more than double the next highest number of starts, which was in Tower Hamlets at 434.
At the other end of the scale, Richmond, Haringey, Bexley and Kensington & Chelsea had fewer than 15 GLA-funded affordable housing starts over two years in 2023-25.
Related stories
