Three London councils launch legal challenge against mayor’s decision to cut affordable housing targets

The councils have also said that the mayor did not use “the proper statutory process for amending” the London Plan’s 35% affordable housing quota.

Tower Hamlets said the claim also relates to the “lack of a fair consultation before the policy change was made, including a lack of evidence justifying the blanket reduction to 20% affordable housing in all London boroughs”.

They highlighted that London’s social housing waiting lists have reached a 10-year high, with London Councils estimating that one in 50 residents in the capital are homeless.

Mr Rahman said the decision to cut the affordable housing quota is “a scandal”, when the “need for genuinely affordable homes has never been greater”.

He continued: “City Hall claims this policy will incentivise developers to build homes more quickly. But homes for whom?

“If ordinary Londoners can’t afford them, they will simply sit empty. Far from accelerating housebuilding, the policy is already slowing it down, with some developers delaying schemes until the quota is cut to 20%.”

Mr Rahman added: “With seven councils backing this legal action, we are demonstrating the devastating impact this policy would have across London.”

Zoë Garbett, executive mayor of Hackney, said that her goal is “a Hackney our communities can afford to stay in” and that the borough urgently needs more affordable social homes.

She said: “To do that, we must ensure developers build genuinely affordable housing, and take action against those that don’t.

“Instead we have a mayor of London doing the opposite – slashing targets, undermining the progress Hackney residents desperately need, and letting developers off the hook.

“The mayor of London is no longer surrounded by councils willing to sign off any developer-driven decision he wants to make. Hackney now has a mayor who will go to bat for affordable housing.”

In an interview with Inside Housing ahead of the mayoral election in Hackney, Ms Garbett said the mayor’s decision to cut the affordable housing target “came as a real surprise” to London councils.

Liam Shrivastava, executive mayor of Lewisham, said it would be “totally wrong” to allow the private developers’ profit to “go unchecked while thousands of people are on councils’ housing waiting lists”.

He continued: “While we understand the challenge the mayor of London faces in terms of a stalled housebuilding market and a developer-led model that is broken, he has provided no justification for these changes, which will undoubtedly reduce the number of affordable homes built in London. 

“In Lewisham, we’re not anti-development – far from it; we want to work with responsible developers that are respectful of our communities and make a positive difference. To do that, we need the planning system to support the delivery of more, not less, of the affordable homes our communities need.”

Commenting on the challenge, Mr Polanski said it “lays bare the difference between electing Green and Labour mayors”.

“Green mayors fight for a housing and planning system that works for people, not profit, while Labour mayors cut affordable homes and line the pockets of private developers,” he said.

The Green Party leader continued: “Londoners won’t forget that it was Sadiq Khan and the Labour government that slashed the number of affordable homes, and Green mayors and councils who fought them and, hopefully, have succeeded in overturning it in the courts.”

In response, a spokesperson for the mayor of London said: “We can confirm that a claim for judicial review has been issued against the GLA. As legal proceedings are ongoing, we are unable to comment further at this stage.”

The emergency package of measures introduced by the GLA was agreed with government in October, and consulted on earlier this year.