London’s mayor to ‘jump start’ the housing market

Boris Johnson has pledged to help Londoners needing affordable housing and cut social housing waiting lists, in his £5 billion draft housing strategy being unveiled today. He said he would identify land belonging to the Greater London authority on which to build new houses, increase shared ownership schemes to help more people get on the property ladder and keep the target set out by Ken Livingstone to build 50,000 affordable homes within three years. Talking on Radio 4 he said that he wanted to remove the target that 50 per cent of all new developments built should be affordable, saying he wanted a more collaborative approach to working with the boroughs.