Sadiq Khan has has committed to building 10,000 new council homes as part of his re-election bid.
Revealing his manifesto for the elections in May, the London Mayor spoke of the importance of building more affordable homes, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On building the 10,000 new homes, Khan said: “I’ll also explore the creation of a new ‘right to buy back’ fund, supporting councils to purchase homes previously sold through the right to buy.
“I’ll commit my new affordable homes programme to building a majority of homes at social rent, with new space, safety, and quality standards to show that social housing can deliver homes that are not just more affordable than the private market, but better quality, too.
“I’ll expand my pioneering land fund to intervene in the land market and deliver more genuinely affordable homes.”
He also reiterated his position on prioritising key workers for intermediate housing.
Khan is also committing to “systemic change” within building safety and says he will continue to “fight” for sprinklers and other fire suppression systems to be sufficiently installed in in all blocks of flats and to bring forward a ban on combustible materials on all buildings.
Khan said: “I’ll continue to press for the decisive action needed to ensure no leaseholder has to pay to fix fire-safety defects in their homes that they had no part in creating, including pressing for the swift introduction of a levy on major developers which could raise more than £3bn to help pay for the work.
“I will act on all Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommendations that fall within my control and do all I can to ensure others do the same.”
Commenting on the decarbonisation agenda, Khan said there will be “no weakening” of the standards already introduced in the capital.
Khan added that he intends to establish a “leading centre” to look at new retrofitting techniques.
Other housing measures Khan is looking to introduce include:
- Expanding the number of community-led homes
- Piloting a new City Hall developer to start directly building the low-cost homes Londoners need
- Building more genuinely affordable homes on surplus public land
- For the Housing and Land directorate to get first refusal on TfL land suitable for housing development above and beyond TfL’s current development programme
- Commissioning an independent review to “streamline housing development”
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