GLA accused of telling developers to 'dig a trench' to inflate affordable housing stats

"Tim Craine, the founder of London development analysts Molior, said the Mayor should be livid that the housing department allegedly embellished figures and accused Sir Sadiq Khan of misleading voters in last year's election campaign. In April 2023, the GLA said that construction had started on 25,658 affordable homes during the previous year, making a total of 116,000 during the Mayor's tenure."

"Mr Craine claimed that officials counted housing starts prematurely, only for development schemes to become unviable due to interest rate rises and construction costs soaring. This means many of those 25,568 homes are still not under construction today, he said. To get around this, he claims developers, housing associations and local authorities were told to dig a trench to register as many housing starts as possible by claiming they had technically begun construction."

"If data around the number of affordable housing starts in London is found to have been misreported, and this this was done with intent, or GLA officers were aware the figures were inaccurate and did not seek to correct the record, we are sure you will agree this would be a very serious matter indeed. Inaccuracies within this data could have given Londoners the impression the GLA had made greater progress on homebuilding than it had done so in reality."

Allegations claim Greater London Authority officials encouraged developers, housing associations and local authorities to dig trenches so schemes could be recorded as affordable housing starts. The GLA previously reported 25,658 affordable housing starts in the year to April 2023 and 116,000 during the Mayor's tenure. Molior founder Tim Craine says many counted starts were premature and later became unviable as interest rates and construction costs rose, leaving numerous projects not actually under construction. Conservative Housing spokesman Lord Bailey has written to GLA CEO Mary Harpley demanding a full investigation and sought confirmation of departmental cooperation from Deputy Mayor Tom Copley.

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