Boris: 50,000 cheap homes on the way

BORIS Johnson has announced plans to create 50,000 affordable homes and kickstart the housing market.

The Mayor said he wanted to build the ambitious total, including 30,000 social housing units, within three years.

The £5 billion scheme will attempt to get middle-income families on the property ladder and ditch previous mayor Ken Livingstone's target that all new schemes are 50 per cent affordable.

Mr Johnson said: "These plans aim to put London on a strong footing for the eventual upturn in the housing market."

The scheme will see:

● Stalled developments receiving public money to go ahead, in return for providing affordable homes.

● Unsold new houses being bought and made affordable.

● More flexible schemes for existing social tenants who aspire to own their own home.

● An increase in the number of family-sized homes available to rent or buy.

● £60 million spent on bringing back long-term empty homes into residential use.

● The number in temporary accommodation halved by 2010 and rough sleeping ended by 2012.

The Mayor wants to give a third more Londoners a foot on the property ladder by raising the income threshold for publicly funded ownership schemes.

Households earning up to £72,000 - or a couple paying the basic rate of income tax - will now be able to access help from which they were previously excluded.

Many middle-income families missed out on the housing boom as they were considered too wealthy for government subsidies, but not rich enough to profit from the market themselves.

Mr Johnson's strategy represents a shift from the previous administration's focus on providing more social rented housing towards the Thatcherite dream of greater home ownership.

Funding will be used to develop subsidised rent and rent-to-buy schemes, which could be sold at a profit or turned into permanent affordable homes when the upturn eventually arrives.

Eligibility for schemes will no longer be based on employment in a bid to support workers from all industries, rather than exclusively key workers such as nurses and teachers.

"The strategy focuses not only on the issues facing the housing market in these difficult times but the historic problems of affordability, homelessness and overcrowding," the Mayor said.

"It is designed to meet the needs of Londoners aspiring to get a foot on the housing ladder. By enabling ordinary Londoners to move from being subsidisers to being investors in new homes, we will provide timely support to a struggling development sector."

The Mayor's director of housing, Richard Blakeway, added: "What Londoners overwhelmingly want is to own their own home and it certainly isn't for us to decide what they should do, it's for us to respond.

"If we become a shareholder, rather than a subsidiser, we're getting money back we can then invest in housing in the future."

However, Mr Johnson's First Steps proposals are certain to raise concerns that financially vulnerable families could be encouraged to invest in the housing market when prices are still plummeting.

The London Assembly's housing committee has called on the Mayor to "shift away" from home ownership and instead focus on boosting the rented sector, at least until confidence returns to the market.

Mr Johnson has scrapped Ken Livingstone's 50 per cent affordable housing target and plans to negotiate with the boroughs to provide 50,000 affordable homes during the next three years, of which 30,000 will be social rented.

But housing experts have warned - and Mr Johnson has already conceded - that his ambitious target will be extremely difficult to deliver in the current economic climate. As a result, he plans to support the struggling construction sector by helping developers financially kick-start stalled developments, buying up unsold market homes for affordable housing and providing public sector land - owned by Transport for London, the London Development Agency and councils - for new housing schemes.

The Mayor's draft housing strategy also includes plans to:

●Ensure higher environmental standards, better accessibility and more beautiful design in new homes.

●Support regeneration schemes to "design out" crime by designing footpaths so they don't provide hiding places for attackers, adequate street lighting and clearly defined public and private spaces.