News from Len Duvall OBE: Almost 1500 New Affordable Homes Started in Greenwich & Lewisham

February 21, 2020

1032 new affordable homes were started by City Hall in Greenwich between April and December 2019 and 445 in Lewisham in the same time period, according to new figures from the Greater London Authority (GLA). Across London, this number exceeded 12,500. Local London Assembly Member, Len Duvall AM, welcomed these figures as “very encouraging”, but has called on the new Housing Minister, Chris Pincher MP, to give City Hall “the right amount of support” in the wake of a decade of “inertia and underinvestment” when it comes to national housing policy.

The latest statistics also reveal a 161% increase in the number of affordable homes that were started in Greenwich, and a respective 46% increase in Lewisham, during this nine-month period, compared to the whole of 2018/2019. The Mayor of London’s Housing Strategy plans for a year-on-year increase in housing starts between 2017 and 2022.

In Lewisham, almost two thirds of these newly started homes will be offered at social rent on completion, with the remainder at other affordable rates and tenures such as London Living Rent and Shared Ownership.

The Mayor of London has secured £4.8 billion of funding so far from the Government to support affordable housing projects in London. However, a report released by the GLA last June, revealed that to meet the scale of housing demand in the capital, Government investment in this area would need to increase seven-fold.

According to analysis from the Resolution Foundation, Central Government funding for affordable housing has dropped across the last decade. After 2011, the national budget for social housing was reduced from £8.5bn for 3 years, to £4.5bn for 4 years. London’s allocation of funding was also significantly reduced, from £3.72 billion between 2008 and 2011 (£1.24 billion per year) to just £627 million from 2011-2015 (£157 million a year), representing an almost 90% reduction in yearly funding for all kinds of social and affordable housing.

Local London Assembly Member, Len Duvall AM, said:

“The national housing crisis has led to the grim reality of thousands of Londoners sleeping rough on our streets, stuck in temporary accommodation or ripped off by extortionate private rents.

“These new figures are very encouraging and show that City Hall is getting on with the job of kickstarting a new generation of social-rented and affordable homes for local people.

“Let’s be clear, we could be even more ambitious and go even further if City Hall received the right amount of support. The stark truth is that we need seven times the amount of funding we currently receive from the Government to meet the scale of demand for affordable housing in the capital.

“Unless the last decade marred by inertia and underinvestment is remedied, Londoners will continue to lose out”.