Independent Tower Hamlets alongside Green Party-led town halls Hackney and Lewisham are making the legal bid to stop Sir Sadiq Khan from cutting the capital’s affordable housing quota from 35 to 20 per cent.
Seven local authorities are backing the action, with Lambeth, Southwark, Waltham Forest and Haringey councils set to support the challenge.
The Judicial Review claim, which was filed with the High Court and served on the Greater London Authority, claims the Mayor’s policy would have a detrimental impact on the ability of councils to deliver the highest levels of affordable housing for residents.
Lutfur Rahman, Executive Mayor of Tower Hamlets, said: “It is a scandal to cut the affordable housing quota when the need for genuinely affordable homes has never been greater. Our city is increasingly being turned into an investment asset for the super rich rather than a place where ordinary Londoners can afford to live, work and raise a family.
“City Hall claims this policy will incentivise developers to build homes more quickly. But homes for whom? If ordinary Londoners can’t afford them, they will simply sit empty. Far from accelerating housebuilding, the policy is already slowing it down, with some developers delaying schemes until the quota is cut to 20%.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (centre) during the topping out ceremony of a new affordable housing development
PA
“London is becoming a tale of two cities, with luxury apartments bought up by overseas investors and left empty, while families languish on housing waiting lists, and 1 in 20 children in our city homeless and more than one million Londoners trapped in overcrowded housing or homes unfit for human habitation because of damp, mould or pests.”
London’s social housing waiting lists are at a 10-year high at more than 336,000 families.
London Councils estimates that almost 183,000 people, or one in 50 Londoners, are currently homeless.
In 2016, when he became Mayor, Sir Sadiq said that more than half of new homes should be affordable and available at between 50 to 80 per cent of average market rates.
He has repeatedly been accused of watering down the promise and plans to further reduce levels have been widely criticised by local authorities, London MP and charities.
Housing Secretary Steve Reed and Sir Sadiq first put forward the proposal to allow developers to qualify for fast-track planning approval if they promised to build 20 per cent affordable homes, rather than the current minimum of 35 per cent, last year.
The Government argued at the time that housebuilding in London was “clearly in crisis” and “35 per cent of nothing was nothing”.
Lutfur Rahman’s Tower Hamlets is among the councils taking legal action
Getty Images / The London Standard
In 2020 the number of homes under construction for private sale or rent at any one time had fallen by a third, to around 40,000 today – and just over 3,000 affordable homes were started across the city in 2023-24.
But Zoë Garbett, Executive Mayor of Hackney, said: “My goal is simple: a Hackney our communities can afford to stay in. But with 40% of residents living in deprivation – and local families facing some of the longest waiting times for social housing – we urgently need more affordable social homes. To do that, we must ensure developers build genuinely affordable housing, and take action against those that don’t.
“Instead we have a Mayor of London doing the opposite – slashing targets, undermining the progress Hackney residents desperately need, and letting developers off the hook.
“The Mayor of London is no longer surrounded by councils willing to sign off any developer-driven decision he wants to make. Hackney now has a Mayor who will go to bat for affordable housing.”
Liam Shrivastava, Executive Mayor of Lewisham, added: “London is in an unprecedented housing crisis, and private developers have a duty to play a role in supporting our city. It would be totally wrong to allow their profit to go unchecked while thousands of people are on councils’ housing waiting lists.
“Developers should build as many affordable homes as possible; letting them get away with delivering less will have devastating consequences right across the city, pushing ordinary Londoners out.”
