Khan offers £200m booster for housing associations
Sadiq Khan has proposed £200m in additional grants for housing associations and has called on the government to match the amount to help counter the market sale slowdown caused by Brexit.
The London mayor has offered the funding to allow housing associations to switch market sale or shared ownership homes to affordable homes at social or intermediate rent levels.
The GLA said the extra funding will allow housing associations to commit to their future plans, sign construction contracts and begin development, without further delay.
Sadiq Khan has proposed £200m in additional grants for housing associations and has called on the government to match the amount to help counter the market sale slowdown caused by Brexit.
The London mayor has offered the funding to allow housing associations to switch market sale or shared ownership homes to affordable homes at social or intermediate rent levels.
The GLA said the extra funding will allow housing associations to commit to their future plans, sign construction contracts and begin development, without further delay.
Khan said: “We must not let the government’s chaotic mishandling of Brexit undermine our plans. That’s why it is right we push our funding to its very limits to keep housing associations building more affordable housing through the ongoing uncertainty – and it’s even more important given the government totally failed to address my concerns when I recently raised them.
“Whatever happens with Brexit, ministers must at the very least match my support, and ensure we can keep building the homes Londoners need over the coming years.”
Last month Khan, along with Paul Hackett, chair of G15, and Darren Rodwell, executive member for housing and planning at London Councils, wrote an open letter to secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, James Brokenshire, calling for emergency grant funding of £5.2bn in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
An MHCLG spokesman said: “We are determined to deliver 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s and Brexit will not change this.”
“To help meet this challenge we are investing £4.8bn to build thousands more affordable properties in London and have abolished the Housing Revenue Account cap – giving councils further financial freedom to build. London has some of the most flexible arrangements to support the delivery of housing of anywhere in the country and we expect the mayor to use these freedoms to meet the capital’s housing need.”
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