The Mayor of London's target of 17,000 affordable home starts has been met, but only by a small amount.
Over the 2019/20 financial year, the Greater London Authority (GLA) reported 17,256 affordable home starts on site, narrowly meeting Mayor of London Sadiq Khan's 17,000 target.
When including open market starts (3,601), this rises to 20,857 overall.
The number of completions on affordable housing was 7,775 over 2019/20, rising to 9,271 when including the open market.
The number of affordable home completions has grown by 3% year-on-year.
Tom Slingsby, chief executive of property developer Southern Grove, said: “The Mayor’s affordable housing target of 17,000 starts has been reached, but only by a whisker.
"That’s good news, but what continues to cause concern is the large gulf between the numbers of starts and the numbers of finished homes.
“This gap was closed dramatically in the final quarter of the financial year with a massive 84% rise in completions.
"That’s impressive, but people can’t move into homes that aren’t finished, and the number of affordable home completions is still languishing on 7,775 compared with 17,256 starts over the year.
"That’s a recent trend. The ‘delivery gap’ did not exist on this scale until it appeared to grow dramatically in 2017/18 and more information is needed to understand why this is happening.
“This disparity needs to narrow to provide a more consistent stream of homes onto the market. Unfortunately that now looks unlikely in the short term thanks to the disruption caused by COVID-19.”
