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Independent data and the London Assembly show starts on the Mayor\u2019s affordable homes programme are running thousands short of revised targets, prompting opposition fury, calls for special measures and fresh debate over green belt and planning reforms with under a year to meet the March 2026 deadline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sadiq Khan has been warned that London\u2019s housing crisis is intensifying as the gap between his affordable-homes targets and reality widens. The Express reported that the Mayor\u2019s goal of having 19,000 affordable homes under way by March 2026 now looks distant after only 347 starts were recorded between April and June this year; the paper said just 5,500 homes in total had begun construction so far, leaving roughly 12,300 to be started in the remaining months before the deadline. Opposition figures described the figures as a warning that the situation for Londoners is becoming \u201cmore severe with every passing day.\u201d According to national reporting, the target for the programme has been cut substantially in recent months amid pressure from difficult market conditions.<\/p>\n
Independent scrutiny shows the shortfall is already significant. The London Assembly\u2019s Affordable Housing Monitor 2025, which reviews delivery up to the end of March 2025, states the Mayor had delivered 5,188 starts against a revised target range of 17,800\u201319,000 \u2014 a shortfall of some 12,600\u201313,800 homes with roughly a year to run. Greater London Authority statistical returns provide the granular picture behind those headlines: the GLA\u2019s programme tables record the financial-year starts and completions and show particularly low starts in 2024\u201325 compared with earlier years, underlining why the Assembly concluded the Mayor had delivered only a fraction of the 2021\u201326 programme by March 2025.<\/p>\n
The scale of the political fallout is already apparent. Lord Bailey, the City Hall Conservatives\u2019 housing spokesman, told media the Mayor was \u201cclearly failing\u201d to tackle rising rents and mortgage pressures for Londoners. Susan Hall, leader of the City Hall Conservatives, called the record \u201catrocious\u201d and said the Mayor had been bailed out by central government funding. The City Hall Conservatives have gone further in public statements, demanding that ministers consider placing the Mayor and the Greater London Authority in \u201cspecial measures\u201d to accelerate delivery. Those criticisms were reflected in coverage across London titles, which highlighted both the low annual starts and the decision to reduce the programme\u2019s target range.<\/p>\n
The Mayor\u2019s office rejected the implication that nothing was being done, saying City Hall had made tackling the crisis a priority and pointing to last year\u2019s completions \u2014 the highest number of affordable homes for social rent in a decade, the spokesman said. City Hall has also signalled willingness to take politically sensitive steps to boost supply: in a City Hall press release the Mayor announced plans to explore releasing parts of London\u2019s green belt for housing, framing any change as strategic and transport-led and accompanied by protections for biodiversity and access to green space. The Mayor\u2019s team has also pointed to factors outside its direct control, including delays from the Building Safety Regulator, as obstacles to faster starts.<\/p>\n
Beyond the immediate numbers, the Assembly\u2019s monitor places the shortfall in longer-term context. It notes that since 2018 some 25,359 GLA-funded council homes have been started while only 12,552 have been completed, and that the GLA estimates London needs a net 42,841 affordable homes a year between 2016 and 2041 to meet need. The monitor also highlights tenure composition: while overall starts are low, a high proportion of current starts are for social rent \u2014 the report records that 84 per cent of starts under the current programme are for social rent, and that the GLA is on track to meet its internal social-rent share target.<\/p>\n
Officials and analysts point to a mixture of causes for the delivery shortfall. City Hall and government briefings cited difficult market conditions and the timing of funding as major constraints; national reporting noted ministers and the GLA agreed a cut to the original London target, a move defended by City Hall as necessary to maximise achievable delivery in constrained circumstances. Regulatory issues \u2014 notably building-safety related checks and approvals \u2014 and pipeline delays have also been singled out in official papers as material barriers that need resolving if starts are to accelerate.<\/p>\n
With fewer than 12 months until the March 2026 deadline for the current programme, the gap between aspiration and delivery poses both practical and political challenges. Conservative calls for intervention and the Mayor\u2019s proposals to look again at the green belt make clear the debate over how to increase supply will intensify. Analysts say reversing the shortfall will require co-ordination on funding timing, faster regulatory approvals, and targeted interventions to unlock stalled sites \u2014 actions that will need rapid agreement between City Hall and Whitehall if more of London\u2019s promised affordable homes are to move from paper to site in time.<\/p>\n
A Reform UK-aligned critic argues that the only viable fix is to cut planning red tape and unleash supply on brownfield land rather than tinkering with the green belt. In their view, urgent, market-driven delivery comes from freeing up development, not from grandstanding about belt protection, and from insisting that funding and approvals move at the pace of real projects on the ground. Until London\u2019s housing pipeline is freed from bureaucratic drag and better aligned with private and community-led building, the capital will continue to see promises outstrip reality.<\/p>\n