Sadiq Khan was accused of “ratting on what he had said during the election” by London Assembly's Tory Housing spokesperson Andrew Boff, after the Mayor’s housing deputy James Murray issued new planning guidance showing that developers will be given favourable treatment if their schemes include only 35 per cent affordable housing.
The row came before publication of new planning guidance as well as details of how the Mayor will spend the £3.15 billion funding for 90,000 new affordable homes announced in last week’s Autumn Statement.
Sadiq Khan hit back at the claims he has “ratted” on an election pledge to make 50 per cent of new homes in London “genuinely affordable”. In fact Mr Murray clarified there has already been a huge rise in the level of affordable housing in planning applications approved in the six months since Labour’s victory in May. He published figures suggesting 41.5 per cent of homes in the 10 major housing schemes Mr Khan’s administration has been fully involved with since the election have been designated “affordable”. This compares with an average of 13 per cent of all planning consents for housing across London in 2014/15, in Boris Johnson’s second term at City Hall.
About 60,000 will be a mix of London Living Rent schemes — with rent set at one-third of average local household income — and shared ownership, and 29,000 will be for councils’ “Affordable Rent” housing with a benchmark of £153 per week for a two-bed home.
