‘Desperate nonsense’: London Mayor Sadiq Khan clashes with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak over housing crisis
reality again for Londoners," Sunak said. In response to Sunak's criticism, City Hall, led by Mayor Sadiq Khan, countered that the Tories were attempting to distract from their inaction on the mortgage crisis.
Khan argued that his administration had surpassed the government's own affordable housing targets, with a record number of council-built homes being initiated. “Are you the same guy who dropped his house building targets? Because I’m the guy who started building more council homes than the rest of England combined, exceeded your affordable homes targets & built more homes of any kind than since the 1930s.
This is desperate nonsense," Khan replied. London Councils also presented data suggesting that 143,000 new homes could be built in the city if certain "viability challenges" were overcome, such as additional grant funding and improved coordination across the government, the Evening Standard reported.
Meanwhile, Sunak's London Plan includes directing £150 million ( ₹1,578 crore) of funding directly to boroughs to prepare brownfield sites for housing, including infrastructure improvements. Additionally, £53 million ( ₹557 crore) has been allocated to the Old Oak West project in west London, with a goal of creating over 9,000 new homes and supporting 12,000 jobs, the publication added.
Furthermore, rules on the use of £1 billion for affordable housing will be relaxed, allowing it to be utilised for the regeneration of old social housing estates. To create more homes in various boroughs like Thamesmead, Becton, and Silvertown, a new development called Docklands 2.0 will be initiated, promising beautiful, well-connected homes surrounded by landscaped parkland.
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