Mayor announces £100m fund to convert stalled market homes to affordable housing

Alongside the new fund, Sadiq Khan announced a new ‘accelerated funding route’ to make it simpler for developers to achieve over 40% affordable homes on their sites by providing more predictable grant financing.

The change to the operation of City Hall’s Affordable Homes Programme will provide a more “simple and predictable” methodology to help councils and housing associations calculate how much grant could be applied to projects and boost delivery on schemes that achieve a high proportion of affordable housing, while reducing the need for negotiation. 

Mr Khan said London’s housing crisis was “decades in the making” and “won’t be fixed overnight”.

But he said: “I’m determined to do everything in my power to deliver more council and genuinely affordable homes across the capital.

“We’ve made important progress, hitting the government’s flagship 116,000 affordable homes target, which was missed outside of London and delivering council homebuilding at double the level of the rest of the country combined.

“There is much more to do and this new fund will help provide more of the homes Londoners so desperately need but we need greater government investment to ensure we can create a fairer and more prosperous London for all.”

Fiona Fletcher-Smith, chair of the G15 and chief executive of L&Q, said: “More than 175,000 Londoners are homeless and living in temporary accommodation – equivalent to one in 50 residents of the capital. 

“This figure also includes 85,000 children – one child in every London classroom. London boroughs are now spending £90m a month on temporary accommodation, pushing some to the brink of bankruptcy.

“With a crisis of this magnitude we need more housing of all types, but the most acute need is for affordable, preferably social housing.

“As the largest providers of affordable housing in the capital, G15 members very much welcome any initiatives that will boost supply. 

“The Housing Kickstart Fund will help to unlock stalled developments and increase the number of affordable homes. 

“We also desperately need innovative funding solutions and a long-term plan to boost new supply in London, and will continue working with the mayor of London and other partners on this.”

In November, Mr Khan launched an initiative aimed at converting up to 10,000 private homes into council housing.