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Khan to launch £250m land buying drive for housing
Sadiq Khan will spend £250m on land for affordable housing under plans to be included in a new draft London Housing Strategy published today.
A draft version of the mayor of London’s long-awaited housing strategy, available here, sets out Mr Khan’s plan to intervene in the land market and to call for powers to intervene further.
The land bought by City Hall will be sold on to developers, with the money made from these transactions recycled into buying more land.
The strategy will also include a commitment to set “clear and ambitious” housing targets for all London councils, a measure intended to make it easier to bring small sites to the market.
The mayor also announced that he would lend more support to the offsite construction of housing, including in factories, an issue on which a recent report by the London Assembly’s housing committee urged him to take the lead.
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Mr Khan said: “It is shameful that a generation of young people are being priced out of the city they grew up in because of the housing crisis. I inherited a development pipeline where just 13% of homes given planning permission were affordable, which is unacceptable.
“My strategy sets out how we can start making a real difference to affordable housing in the city.”
Paul Hackett, chair of the G15 group of London’s largest housing associations, added: “The mayor has played an important role in securing a significant funding settlement for affordable housing delivery. We are ready to deliver on the vision set out in this strategy, and help bring about a step change in the number of homes built in the capital.
“We particularly welcome the acknowledgement that City Hall has a crucial role to play in securing the land needed to build the homes, which is the single biggest challenge to increasing supply. We build around a quarter of all new homes in London. If we can secure enough land to build on, and rally the support of our partners, we can build many more.”
The draft strategy marks the start of a three-month consultation process, after which time the mayor will amend the strategy and submit the final draft to the London Assembly and to the government.
Update: at 10.00am, 06.09.17 Andrew Boff, housing spokesperson for the Conservatives in the Greater London Assembly, said: "We’ve waited over a year for this document but now it has finally arrived I’m sad to see it is another empty vessel.
"Despite bold promises on housing, the mayor has again failed to set any targets outside of those imposed by central government. He has also failed to explain in any detail where he will obtain £250m to buy up new land and his pledges to maximise land use is at best vague idealism."
