London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced a £1.7 billion deal with councils and housing associations in London to start building an additional 50,000 affordable homes to rent and buy over the next four years.
Housing associations and councils made the commitment in response to the London Mayor’s first call for bids to the £3.15bn affordable homes fund which the London Mayor secured from the government in November 2016.
The announcement on Thursday (13/07/17) will see an estimated £1.7bn invested in 49,398 affordable homes being built, with new homes in all 32 boroughs and the City of London.
The new homes will be delivered by 44 housing providers – including large and small housing associations, as well as nine London councils.
A total of 17,500 new homes will be for rents around social levels – and just under 32,000 will be for a combination of the London Mayor’s new London Living Rent and Shared Ownership.
London Living Rent is a new type of tenancy introduced by Sadiq Khan in 2016 to help middle-income earners in the capital save for a deposit to move into shared ownership by offering rents based on one-third of average local gross household incomes.
Housing associations are being given the flexibility to swap homes between London Living Rent and Shared Ownership, depending on local circumstances when homes are completed.
Sites have already been identified and bought for almost half the 50,000 homes – meaning delivery can get underway immediately.
Major housing associations are committing themselves to working with City Hall to bring forward land for the remaining homes allocated.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said:
“I want to see everyone playing their part in tackling the housing crisis in London because it is simply unacceptable that Londoners continue to be priced out of a city they call home.
“We know that solving the housing crisis is not going to happen overnight – but I very much welcome so many housing associations and councils matching my ambition, by committing to build the new and genuinely affordable homes Londoners so desperately need.
“I am delighted that we have set a City Hall record for the number of homes allocated funding – but I am clear that we have got much more to do to secure the land we need to build homes and ensure we have sufficient capacity in the construction industry.”
The allocations also include eight new strategic partnerships with housing associations.
The partnerships – with L&Q, Hyde, Genesis, Clarion, Network, Notting Hill, Optivo, and Peabody – have been struck between the London Mayor and housing associations prepared to build new homes at scale and deliver at least 60% affordable housing across their portfolio of sites.
These partnerships will deliver 38,500 genuinely affordable homes, said the London Mayor.
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