Sadiq Khan ramps up affordable housing starts in race to meet yearly target
Sadiq Khan has ramped up the number of affordable housing starts in London over the past month as he races to meet his yearly target of 12,500 starts.
In the year to the end of January, the Greater London Authority recorded 4,125 housing starts across all of its affordable housing programmes, up 86 per cent from the 2,221 starts reported to the end of December.
Read more: The mayor has started construction on just 428 affordable homes
Under the "Homes for Londoners" programme, funded with £3.1bn from central government, Khan has pledged to start 12,500 homes every year. By the end of January, construction had started on 3,397 homes, significantly higher than the 1,641 starts recorded by the end of 2017.
James Murray, deputy mayor for housing, said: "Some of the variation from one month to the next can be due to actual starts and sometimes due to technicalities. But the target we are working towards is the year-end target.
"It tends to be that more starts are registered towards the end of the financial year."
However, Andrew Boff, London Assembly member for the Conservatives, said Khan will still have to step-up house building to reach his target by the end of March.
"He has seriously underperformed in terms of the number of housing starts," Boff said. "He says it is a marathon not a sprint, but he is only just managing to get his running shoes on."
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