Responding to the Prime Minister’s announcement that the Government will remove the cap on council borrowing to build, Labour’s London Assembly Housing Spokesperson, Tom Copley AM, said:
“Over the last few years, councils across London have been building high quality new council homes for social rent for the first time in a generation. Yet their capacity to deliver could not match their ambitions because of central government borrowing restrictions.
“We have long called on the Government to lift the cap on council borrowing to build new homes as part of a series of measures to trigger the return of mass council housing building. At long last they are beginning to listen. If only the Government had acted sooner, we could have made even more progress in tackling London’s housing crisis.
“In London, under Sadiq Khan, we’ve made significant progress with the Mayor announcing earlier this year plans to support councils in delivering 10,000 new council homes.
“However, it is also imperative that the Government puts a swift end to their disastrous Right to Buy policy, which has seen the mass sell-off of council homes at a discount across the capital, and has been one of the key drivers of the housing crisis”.
ENDS
Notes to editors
-In May 2018, the Mayor of London provided boroughs in the capital with funding to build 10,000 council homes;
-Tom Copley AM is a Londonwide Assembly Member.