The London mayor is scrambling to meet affordable homes targets in the capital following a major construction slowdown, reports Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter

Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan has defended his housebuilding record and said Londoners should expect an “acceleration” in new homes in the capital in the coming years.

Housebuilding starts in general fell by 84% between 2016 – the year Khan took office – and 2025, while City Hall also looks likely to fall short of its affordable housing targets.

The mayor has been quick to blame a lack of investment from the previous Conservative government as well as external factors including rising interest rates and construction costs creating a difficult environment for developers to build in.

Khan has also taken aim at the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) for making it “harder and costlier” to build homes. But the mayor appeared optimistic as he celebrated the 1,000th new council home being built in Haringey.

City Hall has supported the North London borough’s housebuilding programme, including £43.5million of funding for the 272-home Wingspan Walk scheme in Tottenham, as it looks to solve the housing supply crisis across the capital.

In an exclusive interview with the LDRS at the site, the mayor said: “Since I’ve been mayor, we’ve broken records. The most council homes have been built since the 1970s, the most homes completed since the 1930s. On average, there’s been 10,000 more homes completed when I’ve been mayor compared to the previous mayor.

“But across the country you’re seeing the consequences of the perfect storm. The previous government’s policies, interest rates went through the roof because of Liz Truss’ mini-budget, consequences of Brexit, but also we’ve had concrete inflation north of 50%.

“Most of our homes are flats. We now need a second staircase for buildings above 18 metres because of Grenfell – the building safety regulations brought in by the previous government have slowed things down.

“So all that’s led to a slowdown of new homes being started or completed. But I’m determined to ensure we kickstart recovery. That’s why we’ve now secured a deal with the government.

“They’re going to give us £322m towards a City Hall development investment fund to unlock those stalled sites; £11.7bn for affordable and social housing over the next ten years.

“There’s also an emergency package of measures to kick-start housebuilding in London, and I think you’ll see in 2026 and over the next two, three years in this federal term, real acceleration in homes being started and completed.”

One upcoming measure of success will be City Hall’s ability to meet its target for the 2021-2026 Affordable Homes Programme (AHP). Khan met his target of 116,000 starts under the 2016-2023 AHP, but has fallen short in recent years.

The original target for the 2021-2026 AHP was 35,000 starts by March 2026, though this has been revised twice down to a minimum of 17,800. However, just 6,370 affordable homes were started by September 2025, leaving a major shortfall ahead of the looming deadline.

Khan insisted that they were “on course” to meet the March target but admitted “across the country, we simply aren’t building enough homes, and that includes London”.

“Every target we’ve been set by the government we’ve met – the first target was 116,000, we smashed that,” he told the LDRS. “People thought we couldn’t do it because of Brexit, because of the pandemic, Ukraine and so forth.

“We’ve got a new target with the government and we are determined to meet that target, we’re on course to meet that target.

“I’m determined to make sure those homes, as far as they can be, are genuinely affordable. Social rents, council homes – we’re working on 6,000 London Living Rent homes, really important to have rent control in those homes.”

Khan admitted that solving the housing supply crisis in London would still require thinking “outside the box”, even with having already imposing planning reforms including slashing affordability quotas for developers from 35% to 20%.

He added: “Business as usual won’t work when it comes to a housing crisis. Look, people want to come to London, London is the greatest city in the world, it’s not unreasonable people want to move here. There’s nothing wrong per se with growth, we’ve got to plan for that.

“We’re going to make sure we build good quality high density homes on brownfield sites, but also we’re going to recognise a lot of the green belt is poor quality, badly maintained, inaccessible to public transport.

“If we can improve accessibility to public transportation, we should be building with the right conditions on poorly maintained, poor quality Green Belt. You know we should build on small sites, and so we’re determined in the new London Plan to have not just a policy that helps housing but a policy helps growth as well and economic growth.

“By the time of the next election, we’ll have made even more progress. As it is, we’re fixing the housing crisis, but by 2028, the next mayoral election, you’ll see even more homes complete that we’ve started, and you’ll see all those homes that were stalled because of the perfect storm have been unlocked.

“You’ll also see, by the way, by the next election, 6,000 more rent control homes off the ground.”

Speaking at the Wingspan Walk site last week, Haringey Council leader Peray Ahmet told the LDRS that City Hall’s help has been “absolutely huge” in unlocking council homes in the borough.

“We couldn’t have done this alone,” she said. “This is a collaboration between ourselves and the GLA (Greater London Authority), so huge thanks to the mayor of London and the team because with their support we’ve been able to do this.”

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