Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has promised to use housing and infrastructure grants and City Hall funding worth up to £200m to ensure the last three London Olympics sites are developed with a 50% affordable housing rate.
Approximately 3,000 more homes are due to be built on or around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park over the next 12 years – 600 at Stratford Waterfront, 1,500 at Pudding Mill and a further 900 on Rick Roberts Way.
Sites agreed with developers before Khan took office in 2016 have achieved an average of 29% affordable housing, according to the Mayor.
For the last three sites to be developed, Khan is working with the landowner, the London Legacy Development Corporation, to boost the quota of social rented and affordable homes built. City Hall funding worth £10m a year for 20 years will be used to absorb the loss of revenue and additional costs of ensuring half of the 3,000 homes are classified as affordable. This will be included in the Mayor’s 2019 budget.
“It’s vital that our Olympic legacy truly benefits Londoners and that includes affordable housing as well as culture, education and business,” Khan said. “While I cannot change the deals that were agreed before I became Mayor, I’m committed to ensuring that at least half the homes across the three remaining sites for development will be social rented or other genuinely affordable homes.
“There’s no getting away from the fact that to deliver on this commitment costs money – but this is an investment, and City Hall and the public sector in general will benefit from council tax and business rates thanks to the incredible regeneration of the area.”
