London’s housing crisis has become a “housing emergency” – with the latest figures revealing the boroughs where barely any affordable homes have been started in the last two years.
Fewer than 15 homes were started in Richmond, Haringey, Bexley and Kensington and Chelsea between 2023 and 2025, according to the latest analysis of affordable homes being built with £4bn of subsidies from City Hall.
It came as sales of new private homes in London collapsed to "catastrophic" levels in the worst crisis for the market since "perhaps the early 1990s".
London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has been set the Government target of starting 17,800 affordable homes between 2021 and 2026.
However with just a year to go, work has yet to start on more than 12,000 properties, according to the annual London Assembly affordable housing monitor.
By March this year, only 5,188 homes had been started – including 3,991 in 2024/25.
This is the second lowest total since Sir Sadiq became mayor in 2016.
Only 871 homes built under the 2021-26 programme have been finished – meaning a minimum of 16,929 homes have to be completed by March 2030.
Two months ago the Government slashed the mayor’s target, from a previous range of 23,900 to 27,100 starts, to the current range of between 17,800 to 19,000, due to the “difficult conditions London currently faces”.
A third of the homes started under the mayor’s previous affordable homes programme, which ran from 2016 to 2023, have yet to be completed.
In 2024/25, a total of 11,636 affordable homes were completed across London.
The Greater London Authority estimates that the capital needs a net 42,841 affordable homes each year between 2016 and 2041.
However, the net increase in London’s affordable stock last year was 7,674 – barely a sixth of what is needed.
Local authorities in London had 336,357 households on their waiting lists in March 2024 – a quarter of the waiting list for England.
Newham, Lambeth and Brent each had over 30,000 households on their waiting lists.
Zoë Garbett, chair of the London Assembly housing committee, said: “We are far beyond a housing crisis – this is a housing emergency.
“These figures lay bare the scale of the challenge the mayor must urgently confront. The gap between what’s being delivered and what’s desperately needed is incredibly concerning.
“With the affordable housing currently being delivered each year so far below the GLA’s own estimates of what’s needed, it is vital the mayor uses every tool at his disposal to start turning this around.”
A spokesperson for Sir Sadiq said: “Londoners are suffering the consequences of a perfect storm in housebuilding created by the last government’s horrendous legacy – including a lack of national funding, high interest rates, spiralling building costs, delays from bodies like the Building Safety Regulator and the lasting impact of Brexit.
“The mayor has made tackling this crisis a priority since he took office, and despite these challenges the highest number of affordable homes at social rent levels in a decade were completed last year. While affordable housing starts also have suffered from a challenging economic context, we are seeing green shoots of growth, with a rise of almost 70 per cent in the last year.
“Sadiq is determined to work hand-in-hand with Government and partners across the sector to fix the capital’s housing crisis. He welcomes the new funding settlement of £11.7 billion over 10 years for affordable housebuilding in London - the biggest and longest the capital has ever received - as well as the commitment to a ‘Decade of Renewal’ for social and affordable housing.”
Stephanie Pollitt, programme director for housing at BusinessLDN, said: “With a quarter of Londoners living in poverty after accommodations costs are considered, these figures are a stark reminder of the acute housing crisis facing the capital and the urgent need to kickstart delivery.
"The announcement last week of the biggest ever affordable homes programme settlement for the city is hugely welcome and the industry stands ready to work with Government to deliver the new homes that Londoners need.
“That money should be allocated swiftly and flexibly to crowd in additional investment, with any remaining funds left over in the national pot directed to areas of greatest need."
In the private housing market, only 3,950 new homes were sold in the capital during the first half of 2025, according to preliminary data from respected analysts Molior.
Revealing the findings on LinkedIn, Molior’s founder and director Tim Craine said the total represented just nine per cent of the Government’s half-year delivery target of 44,000 homes.
He said: “The market is now as bad as it was in early 2009, perhaps the early 1990s.”
Molior also revealed that private starts have more than halved in the past 12 months with just 731 private homes stating on site in the first half, down 57 per cent.
Housebuilders have been hit by a perfect storm of surging costs, flat sales prices, increased regulation and planning delays that they say undermine the financial viability of many developments.
Katy Warrick head of the London residential research team at agents Savills told the PrimeResi news website: “The perfect storm of market challenges combined with regulatory hurdles has hit the London residential market…And the results are stark.”
