Commenting on the Mayor’s initial proposals for a revised Housing Strategy, published today for consultation with the London Assembly, Jenny Jones said:
"The Mayor’s proposals will only see the housing crisis get worse. He knows he can’t build enough homes to make ownership any more affordable, nor can he deliver secure social housing for the hundreds of thousands of low income households trapped on the waiting lists. He isn’t offering any new ideas to help private tenants suffering from record high rents, nor anything new to reverse the rise in homelessness he has previously predicted.
"The Government cut London’s affordable housing budget by two thirds, and the Mayor hailed this as ‘really good deal’. I would call it a disastrous mistake.
"The Mayor needs to lobby for two essential changes in Government policy: first, we need better protection for private tenants, as it looks inevitable that a decade-long decline in home ownership will continue. Second, we need a realistic housing budget that can provide the low-cost social homes we need. In the meantime, he needs to put all his money and land into keeping rents as low as possible."
Notes to editors
The Mayor’s evidence base for his planning document, The London Plan, found that we need 48,000 homes per year to keep house prices stable, of which 14,560 should be social homes (let by councils and housing associations on rents that households on low incomes can afford).
The Mayor’s plans are to build 32,210 new homes per year, and his funding from Government will only pay for average of 4,683 social rented homes per year. The other "affordable homes" will be let at much higher rents, or sold under schemes that let people buy a share of the property.
The Government’s funding package for the next four years (2011-15) represented a 66% cut compared to the previous affordable housing programme – £1.7bn over four years compared to £3.7bn over the previous three years. The Mayor described the new funding package as a ‘really good deal’ in his press release dated the 14th July.