Mayor launches £4m fund to help boroughs unlock land for council homes

• Fund will help boroughs scale up their housing delivery programmes significantly over the next decade
• Grants of up to £400,000 per council could be used to unlock land for ambitious projects and to help upskill their housing, planning and regeneration teams
• The new fund builds on the renaissance in council homebuilding in London since Sadiq Khan became Mayor, with building at the highest level since the 1970s

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan is set to boost boroughs’ ability to build council homes with a new £4m revenue fund.

The Land for Council Homes Revenue Fund aims to help councils identify and unlock land on which to build homes and to boost the skills and capacity of boroughs’ in-house housing, planning and regeneration teams. This will help councils build the good quality, affordable homes Londoners need and establish a pipeline of new projects for the next decade and beyond.

This new funding is the latest stage in the Mayor’s ongoing commitment to building the homes Londoners so desperately need. Last year, local authorities started more new council homes in London than in any year since 1979. This resurgence in council homebuilding has been driven by initiatives such as the Mayor’s Building Council Homes for Londoners (BCHfL) programme and his Homebuilding Capacity Fund, both of which were launched in 2018. Almost all London boroughs are now building council homes, across City Hall programmes and beyond. When the Mayor’s council homebuilding programmes launched in 2018 only eight boroughs had active projects underway, that number has now climbed to 30 of the 32 boroughs building council homes in 2021/22.

Councils can each bid for up to £400,000 from the new fund to help them identify and unlock land upon which to build new council homes. The Mayor is keen to support ambitious projects that move beyond estate regeneration and infill sites. These could include identifying industrial, retail or office space owned by councils which could be made available for residential development. There is also the possibility of multiple councils working together on large scale projects that cross borough boundaries, with joint proposals able to receive up to £750,000. The Mayor is particularly keen to support those boroughs who have plans to scale up their housebuilding programmes over the next 10 years but which may not have suitable council-owned land to deliver against this ambition.

Funds can also be requested to increase the skillsets of existing council housing teams or to bring in expert help to identify, acquire and develop land for new council homes. The Mayor is asking councils to think creatively about how to use this funding to promote local equality, diversity and inclusion outcomes.

The new fund is a direct response to City Hall’s Building London’s Future: The Next Generation of Council Homes report published in 2020. This research explored and identified ways in which local authorities could scale up local housing development programmes over the next decade, drawing from the experiences of councils across London and GLA analysis. The report acknowledged several key barriers faced by councils wishing to build more homes and noted that these challenges, if left unaddressed, could constrain future delivery ambitions.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said: “I’m proud that we’re reversing years of decline to create a renaissance in council homebuilding and are once again seeing these homes return to every corner of our city.

“Many councils are now building homes on a scale not seen in decades and have had to re-establish their housing delivery teams with limited support from central government. This new fund will help boroughs acquire the skills and expertise they need, as well as aid their efforts to acquire land for these vital homes.

“I’m determined that we do all we can to build on the success of recent years, empowering councils and working with all those involved in constructing new council homes to help build a safer, fairer, greener and more prosperous city for all Londoners.”

Cllr Darren Rodwell, London Councils’ Executive Member for Regeneration, Housing & Planning, said: “This fund will provide a valuable boost to boroughs’ ongoing work to build more council homes across the capital.

“The chronic shortage of council housing is a key factor in London’s homelessness crisis – the most severe in the country and undoubtedly among the most pressing challenges the capital faces.

“Giving boroughs the powers and resources we need to build new homes will bring real benefits to our communities. We’re determined to ramp up progress, and today’s announcement will help make that happen.”