Climbdown On Affordable Housing Targets By Mayor

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 19th Jun 2002

Mayor Ken Livingstone has backed down from his earlier targets to secure 28,000 extra affordable homes for London every year and now expects at the most only 11,500 per year.

At today's London Assembly meeting, the Mayor admitted that his earlier targets, based on estimates by his Housing Commission1 that London needed an extra 43,000 new homes, of which 28,000 needed to be affordable homes, had now been downscaled. He now hopes to see up to 23,000 new homes being built each year in London and up to half of which would be affordable units.

Mike Tuffrey, the Liberal Democrat member who questioned the Mayor on what exactly his targets were following conflicting information issued by the Mayor's office to the press, said:

"The Mayor said that he aims to see 23,000 new homes being built in London per year. Even if he designates that up to 50% of all new housing should be affordable, he could not have achieved even half his original target of 28,000 extra affordable homes to meet London's housing need."

"Rather than admit this - and doing something to tackle the huge gap - he has downgraded his targets so that he can claim that he is meeting them."