THREE London councils – Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Lewisham – have launched a legal challenge to stop the Mayor of London’s planned cut to the affordable housing quota from 35% to 20%. Seven councils are backing the legal action in total, with Lambeth, Southwark, Waltham Forest and Haringey councils formally supporting the legal challenge.
Evidence prepared as part of the Judicial Review claim, which has been filed with the High Court and served on the Greater London Authority, highlights the detrimental impacts that the Mayor of London’s policy would have on the ability of councils to deliver the highest levels of affordable housing for their residents.
The legal challenge, backed by seven local authorities, relates to the Mayor of London’s attempt to reduce the current 35% affordable housing quota in the London Plan without using the proper statutory process for amending that plan. It also relates to the lack of a fair consultation before the policy change was made, including a lack of evidence justifying the blanket reduction to 20% affordable housing in all London boroughs. The three councils which are the joint claimants in the legal challenge are all led by Executive Mayors, who are directly elected by residents in their boroughs.
In 2016 the Mayor of London said that more than 50% of new homes should be affordable. The plans to further reduce the quota from 35% to 20% have been widely criticised by local authorities across London, by London MPs and housing organisations such as the National Housing Federation and Shelter. London’s social housing waiting lists have reached a 10-year high and more than one million Londoners are living in overcrowded housing or homes otherwise unfit for human habitation due to pests, damp and mould. London Councils estimates that 183,000 Londoners overall (one in 50 residents of the capital) are homeless.
90,000 children are homeless and living in temporary accommodation, which is one out of every 21 children in London – equivalent to at least one homeless child in every London classroom. Housing costs are the overwhelming driver of child poverty in London. The proportion of people living in poverty in London increases significantly from 15% to 26% when housing costs are included. London is already facing a school closure crisis, with a sharp decline in pupils as families are pushed out the city, leaving classrooms empty.
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%.
“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.
“With seven councils backing this legal action, we are demonstrating the devastating impact this policy would have across London. We remain ready to engage constructively with the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority, but we cannot stand by while thousands more Londoners are pushed out of their communities and plunged into poverty and homelessness.”
Zoë Garbett, Executive Mayor of Hackney, said:
“As Mayor of Hackney, 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, said:
“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.
“While we understand the challenge the Mayor of London faces in terms of a stalled house building market and a developer-led model that is broken, he has provided no justification for these changes, which will undoubtedly reduce the number of affordable homes built in London.
“In Lewisham, we’re not anti-development – far from it; we want to work with responsible developers, that are respectful of our communities and make a positive difference. To do that, we need the planning system to support the delivery of more, not less, of the affordable homes our communities need.”
