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I’m often asked what the council is doing to build more homes that are affordable for local people. It is an important question, so I hope you’ll bear with my slightly longer intro this week as I answer it.
So what is the council doing?
Firstly, we’re investing in extending the life of the affordable homes we already have. Southwark is by far the biggest council landlord in London, with a quarter of our residents already living in a council home. We’re investing £250million to give these homes a new lease of life.
We’re also building new council homes. More than any other council, with over 3,000 starting on site since 2016, over 500 completed in 2024 and 16 active sites today. In total, there are 1,442 social rent homes currently being built that all started since the adoption of the Southwark Plan in 2022. These figures include both council rent and those homes managed by registered housing providers. You can see them right across the borough, on sites from Bankside to Dulwich and everywhere in between.
Just as importantly, we take a firm stance with private house builders to make sure they build affordable homes too.
You’re probably asking, ‘but what do you mean by affordable?’ On that we have strict rules. House builders have to include both social rent homes and one or more of shared ownership, London Living Rent, key worker, Community Land Trusts or discount market sale homes.
Thanks to our firm stance, 25% of those homes given planning permission in the last four years are social rent homes, and another 15% are other types of affordable home such as shared ownership.
In fact, a fifth of all the social rent homes started in London last year were here in Southwark. That’s despite the fact we’re just one of 32 boroughs in the city.
There’s much more to do. After 14 years of homelessness rocketing across our country thousands of people urgently need a home they can afford. That’s why we’ll continue to use every opportunity to build more truly affordable homes in Southwark to meet the needs of our community.
Cllr Kieron Williams
Leader of Southwark Council
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