Questions over London affordable housing claim

London mayor Sadiq Khan is facing criticism over trumpeting “record” affordable housing starts at the same time that actual completion of affordable homes remains stubbornly low.

Earlier this week Khan said the GLA had met its target to start 17,000 affordable homes in the year to March with 17,256 starts, a rise of 19% on the previous year and the highest figure since the number was first recorded in 2002/3.

However, the number of affordable homes completed rose by just 3% to 7,775 in the same period – less than half the figure for starts.

The numbers represent the third year in a row that affordable housing starts have been recorded at around double the level of completions, and the fifth year in a row that they have been significantly above completions, implying that thousands of homes have been begun which have never been finished.

However, London’s deputy mayor for housing Tom Copley (pictured, below with Sadiq Khan, right) told Housing Today that the disparity just represented “the usual lag” between starts and completions on site, which are often on very large schemes.

Russell Quirk, property expert at MovingHomeAdvice.com said the figures suggested there was a “Bermuda Triangle” of new homes. He said: “In the four years of the current Mayor’s tenure only 49% of the affordable housing that was allegedly incepted, has actually been completed and clearly Sadiq Khan, election looming or not, has questions to answer over where these phantom dwellings have been lost.

Quirk described the figures as “very fishy” but deputy mayor Copley rejected the criticism.

“To my understanding this is just the usual lag between starts and completions. I remember the same thing happening under Boris Johnson when I was on the GLA committee. It does take time to build these schemes out.”

Defending Khan’s decision to highlight the starts figures in a press release that didn’t mention the completions figures, Copley said starts were a better measure of a mayor’s record because completions often reflected the policies of a previous mayor and he wasn’t concerned about the disparity.

He said: “Starts is a much better barometer of a mayor’s record. In my experience completions tend to ramp up towards the end of the affordable housing programme, so that’s wht I’d expect to see again.”

This week’s affordable housing figures reported that 3,300 council homes were started in the year, the highest figure since 1984/85. Releasing the figures, Khan said: “Today’s record-breaking figures show that we are doing more than ever before to tackle the capital’s housing crisis by building more of the genuinely affordable homes Londoners need, but we know there is a mountain to climb to kickstart the housing sector again as we ease out of lockdown.