More than half of homes started under Sadiq Khan’s 2016-2023 programme yet to be completed

A total of 61,755 homes have yet to be completed out of the 116,782 starts made under the Mayor’s £4.82bn 2016-2023 Affordable Homes Programme (AHP).

Figures provided in the London Assembly’s annual Affordable Housing Monitor report reveal that 55,027 of the homes started under the 2016-23 were completed, leaving more than half still unfinished.

The Mayor met the target under the programme to start 116,000 affordable homes by March 2023, including 25,658 homes in 2022-23.

There is no deadline set for when all 116,782 homes started under the 2016-2023 AHP will be delivered.

However, in a housing committee meeting in June, the deputy mayor, Tom Copley said that the majority of the oustanding homes are forecast to be completed by 2029. A remaining 2,700 homes are set to be completed in the early 2030s.

Copley said that not having a target enabled the GLA to fund longer-term schemes, in particular, multiphase estate regeneration schemes.

The affordable housing monitor report also said that the Mayor’s delivery of ’low cost rent homes’, which includes social rent, affordbale rent and London affordable rent,  is  below the level of assessed need.

According to a GLA assessment, London needs around 31,000 new homes at low-cost rent, and 12,000 intermediate homes, including homes for shared ownership and London Living Rent, each year. In 2022-23, the Mayor and his team delivered 7,402 low-cost rent homes and 6,432 intermediate homes. Khan has emphasised that the new AHP for 2021-26 will deliver more social rent homes, with the GLA stating that it is aiming for 60% of homes delivered to be social rent.

The figures come after Copley, last month told the GLA housing committee that “frustrating delays” caused by disputes between DLUHC and the treasury and challenging market conditions meant no new homes had been started under the current AHP, which runs from 2021 to 2026,.

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According to Copley, these delays prevented the Mayor of London and his team from signing development contracts for over a year.