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GLA holding £500m in unallocated housing grant
London mayor Sadiq Khan is holding more than £500m of unallocated affordable housing grant in his coffers for housebuilding, it has emerged.
A letter which appears to have been published accidentally as part of the notes to last week’s meeting of the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) budget and performance committee reveals that £535m of the £4.77bn handed to the mayor to build affordable homes in the capital is sitting in City Hall’s bank account.
It comes after the mayor this summer demanded that ministers hand him an extra £5bn for affordable housing from the government to support London’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
The letter, addressed to committee chair Susan Hall and signed by Rickardo Hyatt, assistant director of housing at the GLA, said the unallocated money “will be used to fund additional homes towards the target, plus further over-programming of around 5,000 homes”.
That will help the mayor achieve his target – agreed with ministers as a condition of the funding – to start 116,000 affordable homes by the end of 2022/23 by ensuring “that any slippage or non-delivery between now and the end of the programme can be mitigated through schemes progressing with GLA allocations”, it added.
The headroom, it argued, “places the GLA in a strong position to support additional homes towards the 116,000 starts target and a level of over-programming to ensure the target is met”.
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A City Hall spokesperson told Inside Housing that some of the £535m will be used for coronavirus recovery initiatives, with some supporting ongoing schemes and some not yet subject to bids.
But a rival candidate for next year’s mayoral elections, delayed by 12 months because of the pandemic, demanded urgent action to divvy out the cash.
Mr Hyatt’s also lists the allocations already decided by the GLA since 2016, worth £4.24bn and expected to deliver 115,000 homes.
L&Q, which owns around 105,000 homes, has taken a £600.1m slice – around 14% of the total.
Notting Hill Genesis has been allocated more than £300m, with Peabody securing £284.6m and Clarion £226.4m.
Ealing Council has received the highest allocation among local authorities to date with £108.1m.
In the letter, Mr Hyatt requests that the list and details of headroom in the programme are not published to ensure the “ability to continue to drive forward value for money on grant allocations”.
Sian Berry, London Assembly member and Green Party candidate for mayor, called for the money to be used to convert existing homes to social rent for homeless people in the capital or to de-risk housing association development schemes during the pandemic.
“I think there’s a really strong case for money that’s unallocated in the current programme to be put towards things that could help issues arising from the current crisis,” she said.
“What I’d like to see is some sign of an urgent action plan to use the unallocated funds as soon as possible. They are no use in the mayor’s back pocket.”
A spokesperson for Mr Khan said: “The mayor has achieved record-breaking delivery of affordable homes in London and despite the challenges of coronavirus, there remains a strong appetite from councils and housing associations to build new affordable homes in the capital.
“This is reflected by the fact that 90% of current affordable homes programme funding has been allocated with just over two years remaining until the programme ends.
“The remaining funds will be used to agree additional allocations to support housing providers to continue strong development plans in light of uncertainty arising from COVID-19.”
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