By Ben Kerrigan-
Sadiq Khan has blamed Brexit for rising cost of building materials and worker shortages in the construction sector for a lack of progress on London’s affordable housing targets, Sadiq Khan has said.
That programme will run alongside the 2016-2023 programme, which was extended due to the Covid-19 pandemic and will see a total of 116,000 homes started through £4.8 billion of Government funding..
The most recent City Hall figures show that just 1,673 affordable homes were started between April and September 2021, with more than 40,000 homes still yet to be started under City Hall’s 2016-2023 programme.
On Friday, Sadiq Khan said that the “twin effects of the pandemic and Brexit” have hampered the Greater London Authority’s housebuilding efforts as he called for the Government to provide a greater level of funding to reflect the current situation.
Mr Khan said: “Put simply, materials and labour are needed to build homes. Earlier this month, I called on the Government to create a temporary visa scheme for construction workers, which would go some way towards alleviating the debilitating double impact of Brexit and the pandemic on the building industry.
“I am also calling on ministers to provide the increased funding for genuinely affordable housing in London that I have long called for and which is needed now more than ever. Without bricks and mortar, and enough skilled workers, the excellent progress we have made in delivering the good quality and genuinely affordable homes that Londoners need is at risk of stalling.”
Figures highlighted by the Mayor of London on Friday show that the cost of construction materials for new housing rose by 21 per cent last year with inflation reaching a 40-year high.
Khan who is politically a remainer believes Brexit is to blame for most things that have gone wrong in society since the referendum in which brits marginally voted to leave the European Union.
He is in principle against the ruling tory party, whom he sees as doing a bad job.
He recently express his desire for mask wearing to continue on london public transport, despite the law change that abolished the rule last week.
Mr Khan said that the Government must “look beyond their current blinkered approach to immigration” and that “we need skilled tradespeople on site now to manage the short-term crisis and build a strong recovery”.