JUST one year in and Boris Johnson has already abandoned his manifesto pledge to deliver 50,000 affordable homes by 2011.
The Mayor has £5billion of government money to invest in affordable housing between now and 2011 but has no clear strategy for how he will spend it, and has so far failed to reveal whether he has even agreed with Hounslow Council how many affordable homes they must deliver. Worse still, at a time when more people are in need of a social home to rent, the Mayor is actually doing less to help them. He has shifted the emphasis so more money will go towards home ownership schemes at the expense of affordable homes to rent.
This ignores the overwhelming evidence of where the real housing need is - in the social rented sector. In Hounslow alone 11,334 households are waiting. The Housing Federation estimate that, by next year, almost one million people will be waiting for a social rented home in London. If this lack of commitment to meeting housing needs is an indication of what we can expect from a future Conservative government, then those on London's growing waiting lists should be very worried indeed.
NICKY GAVRON Labour housing spokesperson,
London Assembly
