Tory councils 'get easy ride on cheap homes'

BORIS Johnson was accused of letting Tory boroughs off the hook over affordable housing today by Labour council chiefs.

Evening Standard has obtained documents which reveal the 14 Conservative councils will have to provide just under 15,000 of the Mayor's 50,000 affordable homes.

The burden of building almost half of the Mayor's promised homes will fall on just nine Labour boroughs, if the targets are agreed.

The Mayor has announced ambitious plans to kickstart the London housing market with a multi-billion-pound cash injection. The full list of targets set by Mr Johnson, which City Hall refused to release, shows the eight local authorities with the lowest goals would between them deliver just nine per cent of the target.

Richmond, the City of London, Bexley, Kensington & Chelsea, Hillingdon, Merton, Kingston, and Sutton would be collectively responsible for providing just 4,133 affordable homes. Of these eight, four are Tory led and three Liberal Democrat, while the City of London does not have political affiliations.

Jules Pipe, leader of the Labour group on London Councils, said: "Under these targets the Mayor is asking the nine Labour boroughs to provide almost half of all London's new affordable homes over the next three years. We make up less than a third of all London boroughs and are geographically quite small, with high levels of housing density already. In contrast, fully half of the boroughs are Tory, but they are only being asked to deliver one third of the affordable homes target, despite having some of the biggest boroughs in London.

"The targets should share out affordable housing fairly to ensure that we have genuinely mixed and sustainable communities across the capital. The Mayor needs to ensure that every borough delivers a mix of social and intermediate housing. If he doesn't, Tory boroughs will be allowed to build no social housing, leaving the poorest and most vulnerable unable to get any foot on the housing ladder."

Sir Robin Wales, Mayor of Newham, which is expected to deliver 5,754 homes, said: "We're absolutely committed to delivering affordable housing, which is much needed throughout London, so targets across the capital should reflect that." Every council in London has received "indicative targets" from City Hall saying how many affordable homes the Mayor believes they can provide by 2011. The boroughs can respond before final numbers are agreed early next year.

Richard Blakeway, the Mayor's director of housing, said the proposed targets were ambitious but denied they were soft on any boroughs.

He said: "We are pushing harder than the current agreements with the Government, but we are proposing a reasonable share of the affordable housing for each borough. That is based on their capacity to deliver, it is based on what they have delivered in recent years, the programme they have in the pipeline, and based on their need."

Number of affordable homes

Newham (Labour) 5,754

Tower Hamlets (Lab) 5,164

Barnet (Conservative) 3,369

Greenwich (Lab) 3,295

Southwark (No overall control) 2,672

Barking & Dagenham (Lab)1,951

Islington (NOC)1,902

Brent (NOC) 1,836

Croydon (Con) 1,803

Lambeth (Lab) 1,803

Hackney (Lab) 1,779

Lewisham (Lab) 1,598

Ealing (Con) 1,500

Redbridge (Con) 1,484

Wandsworth (Con) 1,221

Westminster (Con) 1,115

Haringey (Lab) 1,115

Waltham Forest (Lab) 1,090

Camden (NOC)975

Havering (Lab) 877

Bromley (Con) 795

H'smith & Fulham (Con) 738

Hounslow (NOC) 730

Harrow (Con) 656

Enfield (Con) 648

Kingston (Lib-Dem) 631

Merton (Con) 607

Hillingdon (Con) 598

Kensington & Chelsea (Con) 574

Bexley (Con) 566

Sutton (Lib-Dem) 566

Richmond (Lib-Dem) 443

City of London (non-political) 148

TOTAL: 50,000