London Mayor Sadiq Khan has come under fire after news emerged that Croydon could miss out on 145 new affordable homes, after plans to build a gigantic shopping centre in the south London area were approved.
Under the new project, which will cost £1.4bn, up to 967 new homes will be built and made available, however, of these, it seems that only 20% will be deemed affordable.
This would mean that the percentage falls considerably short of Khan’s pledge for 35% of developments on public land to be given to affordable homes, though when pressed on the issue, Khan claimed that it was a “starting point.”
The news has been met with criticism, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation charity have urged Khan to”claw back” as much affordable housing as he possibly can.
Khan believes that the amount of affordable housing in this specific project will “to rise over time”, and this is something that Brian Robson, a member of the charity, backs, but Robson maintains that Khan needs to be stronger.
“I’m sure there are reasons as to why the deal was struck this way, but the mayor has been really strong in getting developers to stick to these affordable housing targets since coming into office,” Robson said.
Since Khan won the Mayor London title in 2016, he has used his “planning powers” to step in on four separate developments across the capital, and on those occasions has successfully managed to raise the amount of affordable homes to the 35% mark.
