Southwark and Lambeth have joined Lewisham, Hackney and Tower Hamlets in a judicial review against plans to cut the affordable housing quota for new developments from 35% to 20%. The quota drop was approved in October last year by the Mayor of London in order to incentivise building developments.
In an official statement, Southwark Council expressed its ‘wholehearted support’ for the legal challenge against the reduction of London’s affordable housing requirements.
Councillor Victor Chamberlain, Southwark Council’s Deputy Leader, stated that with over 23,000 households on the waiting list for council housing, ‘Southwark’s defining issue’ is the lack of genuinely affordable housing.
Echoing this, Mayor of Lewisham Liam Shrivastava stated on his Instagram: ‘the housing system is broken, we all know it. And it’s becoming harder for councils to get developers to commit to affordable homes when building locally. And now the government and the Mayor of London want to make it even worse.’
Shrivastava explained that the developments in London will have only 20% affordable housing, ‘shifting more power to developers despite their huge profits.’ There are over 10,000 households In Lewisham stuck on the housing waiting list. Shrivastava is therefore determined to ‘make developers play their part.’
The councils’ move comes at a time in which south Londoners are becoming more and more vocal in their frustration at the housing crisis and inaccessibility of affordable housing. Protests against the proposed redevelopment of the iconic Old Kent Road have been consistent in the past months. Families on the St James Estate in Bermondsey and the Aylesbury Estate in Walworth have faced increasing uncertainty, landlord pressure and evictions. Groups such as Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth (HASL) have been active in speaking out against poor housing conditions and lack of council support for families facing homelessness and overcrowded conditions. In their open letter to Lambeth Council, HASL criticised the council’s policy to ‘force homeless families back into the insecure and poor quality private rented sector’ through forced evictions or ‘private sector discharge’. The group Save Old Kent Road has shown the weaknesses of the quota itself. The groups’ Action Plan states that developers in the area have systematically used ‘viability assessments’ to build less affordable housing; specifically in Peckham, where these viability assessments were used to lower affordable housing to just 12%.
What is increasingly clear is that the situation for south London’s families has become dire. One family of six from Southwark has taken the council to the High Court after being pushed down the priority list for council housing despite overcrowding and young children with autism.
