50,000 target remains a sticking point for Mayor’s housing plans The Assembly’s Planning and Housing Committee has given the Mayor’s draft housing strategy – published today – a cautious welcome.
Chair of the Committee Jenny Jones AM said:
"We are pleased the strategy includes specific proposals that address some of the concerns raised in our response to the Mayor’s consultation with the Assembly. Plans to boost the institutional private rented sector, raise design standards, tackle overcrowding and bring empty properties back into use are steps in the right direction.
"However, some concerns remain. And the most glaring of these is that it seems the Mayor’s promised 50,000 new affordable homes by 2011 still hang in the balance.
"A year into his Mayoralty, fewer than half of the 50,000 have been agreed and a third of the boroughs continue to withhold their agreement to the Mayor’s proposals for how many of the total they should deliver. A very disappointing situation for the tens of thousands of Londoners in desperate need of homes."
The Committee’s detailed response to the Mayor’s housing strategy – see note 1 – is based on discussions with a variety of housing experts and the Mayor’s Director of Housing. It is available in full at: http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/plansd.jsp
See also the Committee’s snapshot briefing, published in November: ‘Crunch time for London’s affordable housing’, which informed today’s
response. Available at:
http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/plansd.jsp
http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/index.jsp
Notes for editors:
1. Whilst the Conservative Group on the Assembly agree with the bulk of this response they do not agree with arguments against the removal of the 50 per cent affordable housing target and the change to the 60/40 social/intermediate split. They therefore dissent to the paragraphs detailed in Appendix 1 of this response.