Mayor unveils major new £100m Housing Kickstart Fund to accelerate stalled developments and boost delivery across the capital

• Mayor unveils new £100m Housing Kickstart Fund to convert market-rate homes on stalled sites into affordable homes to rent and buy
• Funding forms part of a new package of measures to boost council and genuinely affordable housing supply, amidst a national housing downturn
• These measures build on record-breaking genuinely affordable homebuilding under Sadiq, including hitting the Government’s flagship 116,000 affordable homes target

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has today announced a new £100m Housing Kickstart Fund to convert market-rate homes on development sites that have started but stalled due to economic conditions, into the genuinely affordable homes Londoners desperately need. The funding is new money made available from City Hall to help boost delivery during this national housing downturn.

The Mayor has also made a new commitment to utilise City Hall’s existing funding, skills and experience to unlock and accelerate the building of homes on brownfield sites. Two sites, in Newham and Southwark, are already benefiting from a multi-million pound injection of new funding, accelerating the delivery of 1,450 housing starts by March 2026. These include 40 per cent of the development being genuinely affordable homes for local people.

Alongside the Housing Kickstart Fund, the Mayor has announced a new Accelerated Funding Route, to make it simpler for developers to achieve over 40per cent affordable on their sites by providing more predictable grant financing.

Affordable housing delivery in London has consistently outpaced the rest of the country under Sadiq’s mayoralty, reaching the Government’s flagship affordable housing target despite being missed outside the capital, and council housebuilding reaching double the level of the rest of the country combined. However, the Mayor has been clear that much more is needed to fix the city’s decades-long housing crisis and has joined with public and private developers to make the case for far greater action and investment from Government.

These calls have been ignored, despite the ongoing national housing downturn, with major developers warning that housebuilding across the country may fall to the lowest level since the Second World War. The Mayor has pledged to step in and act to boost the delivery of new homes, with a focus on the council and genuinely affordable homes that Londoners need most.

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said: “London’s housing crisis was decades in the making and won’t be fixed overnight, but I’m determined to do everything in my power to deliver more council and genuinely affordable homes across the capital.

“We’ve made important progress, hitting the Government’s flagship 116,000 affordable homes target, which was missed outside of London and delivering council homebuilding at double the level of the rest of the country combined.

“There is much more to do and this new fund will help provide more of the homes Londoners so desperately need but we need greater Government investment to ensure we can create a fairer and more prosperous London for all.”

Fiona Fletcher-Smith, Chair of the G15 group of London’s leading housing associations, said: “More than 175,000 Londoners are homeless and living in temporary accommodation – equivalent to one in 50 residents of the capital. This figure also includes 85,000 children – one child in every London classroom. London boroughs are now spending £90m a month on temporary accommodation, pushing some to the brink of bankruptcy.

“With a crisis of this magnitude we need more housing of all types, but the most acute need is for affordable, preferably social housing.

“As the largest providers of affordable housing in the capital, G15 members very much welcome any initiatives that will boost supply. The Housing Kickstart Fund will help to unlock stalled developments and increase the number of affordable homes. We also desperately need innovative funding solutions and a long-term plan to boost new supply in London, and will continue working with the Mayor of London and other partners on this.”