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London mayor Sadiq Khan has urged ministers to hand him more funding and powers to increase council housebuilding in the capital as part of its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
He called on the government to “stop blocking the aspiration of London’s councils to build” as City Hall launched a report making recommendations on how to accelerate local authority housing supply.
Legislation should be changed to make it cheaper for councils to use compulsory purchase orders, the report said, while more government-owned land should be reserved for council housing.
It also demanded a 10-year funding plan for council housebuilding in London and a loosening of restrictions on how town halls can use Right to Buy receipts.
Land supply, funding and skills were identified as the three key points of difficulty for boroughs seeking to increase direct development.
Councils started 3,300 new homes in London last year, the highest number since 1983.
The Greater London Authority estimates that the capital needs 65,000 new homes a year with half of these affordable, including 22,750 for social rent.
In 2018, Mr Khan launched his £1bn Building Council Homes for Londoners programme, which aims to deliver 14,700 homes.
The mayor said: “As we grapple with the impact of coronavirus, it is more important than ever that we address our city’s inequalities and build the good-quality council homes that future generations of Londoners will be proud to live in.
“The fantastic reaction to our ‘Building Council Homes for Londoners’ programme showed there is a big appetite from councils to build the homes Londoners so desperately need.
“Ministers now need to stop blocking the aspirations of London’s councils to build, and give London the funding and powers we need to build new council homes at scale.”
Darren Rodwell, executive member for housing and planning at London Councils and leader of Barking and Dagenham Council, said: “Council housing has a crucial role to play in addressing London’s homelessness crisis and in supporting the capital’s economic recovery.
“Boroughs are determined to keep increasing the number of new council homes and other forms of affordable housing.
“We’re enthusiastic supporters of the government’s ‘build, build, build’ agenda – but ministers could do much more to boost resources for council housebuilding and empower us to deliver affordable homes at even greater scale.”
In July, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee of MPs urged ministers to put social housebuilding “top of the government’s agenda” in its plan for the country’s COVID-19 recovery.
But responding to the recommendations, the government chose not to make any such commitment.
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