In 2023/2024, Southwark Council approved just 16 homes in the planning process, representing less than 1% of the total homes approved in that year, with 2656 non-council homes approved in the same year.
Just a few weeks ago, the Southwark Liberal Democrats exposed shocking statistics showing that starts on council housebuilding had fallen by 96% to just 28 starts last year.
This comes after Sadiq Khan was blasted by the statistics authority for using misleading statistics in relation to the London Mayor’s housebuilding figures, with the massaged numbers featuring prominently in his re-election campaign.
The Liberal Democrats are calling on Southwark Labour to come clean about its own record in the midst of a housing crisis, after putting its building programme “on ice” to tackle a £16 million deficit last year, and its former housing director admitting to its flagship housebuilding target being “unfunded”.
Commenting, Liberal Democrat Group Leader Cllr Victor Chamberlain said:
“The more we scratch away at the surface of Labour’s housebuilding claims, the more we find spin and smoke and mirrors. Southwark is at ground zero of this housing crisis, so to approve just 16 council homes in the last year is a disaster for any hope of ending it. For Labour to continue to try to boast about their record is nothing short of insulting.”
