Green Assembly Member Darren Johnson expresses his shock at the Mayor’s ‘relaxed’ attitude about his ‘abysmal record’ on affordable housing.
Green AM Darren Johnson calls for the Mayor to ‘face up to the failure’ and to ‘start lobbying for a larger housing budget’.
Papers for the Mayor’s ‘Homes for London’ board confirm that the Mayor will deliver 52,749 affordable homes using GLA money by March 2015, short of his 55,000 target, meaning he expects to break a key manifesto promise on affordable housing for the second time. The papers also forecast that he will deliver fewer affordable homes in his second term than any Mayoral term since 2000-04.
Darren commented, “I’m dismayed that the Mayor expects to break a key manifesto promise on affordable housing for the second time by failing to deliver the 55,000 homes by the end of March. Instead of trying to move the goalposts, he should face up to this failure and start lobbying for a much bigger housing budget.”
“Londoners are suffering from crushing housing costs and more and more families are being shipped out of the capital. It’s astonishing that the Mayor would be so relaxed about this abysmal record on affordable housing in the middle of such a serious crisis. Many of the homes he is funding aren’t even affordable for the people they’re supposed to help.”