00:00Housing is our number one issue. It came up time and time again on the doorstep in the recent election.
00:04We need as much council and affordable homes as possible.
00:07These measures that are being brought in are a developer solution
00:10and they will stifle what we're able to do as London directly elected mayors and leaders in our boroughs.
00:16I took the fight to the Mayor of London when I was an Assembly Member in City Hall
00:19and we're doing that as the mayors in our boroughs.
00:22Currently, new developments must allocate 35% of the development to affordable housing
00:28to use a fast-tracked planning process.
00:31But under plans announced in October, this quota is set to be reduced to 20%.
00:36The prospective legal challenge is being supported by Lambeth, Southwark, Waltham Forest and Haringey councils
00:42as well as Green Party leader Zach Polanski.
00:45The councils claim that the Mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan and City Hall have not used the proper process
00:50for amending the quota in the London plan, a development strategy written by the Mayor.
00:55Hackney, Tower, Hamlets and Lewisham councils, each led by a directly elected Mayor,
01:01also claim there was a lack of consultation before the decision was made.
01:04We're doing this because our communities are crying out for genuinely affordable housing.
01:11We've got over 10,000 people on the housing waiting list in Lewisham.
01:15We've got families languishing in terrible conditions in temporary accommodation.
01:19The alternative in allowing these measures to go forward is completely unthinkable.
01:26We have to have genuinely affordable, council-led housing solutions for our residents.
01:32That's what they deserve and that is what we're fighting for and that's why we're bringing this challenge.
01:37Overcrowding is a serious issue in town.
01:38We have some 8,000 people living in acute overcrowding, general overcrowding by 14,000 people.
01:45The 31,000 people waiting list for us, reducing the overcrowding, delivering more affordable homes, council homes, social affordable homes
01:54and more importantly, family social homes is very important to us.
01:58Also, through this proposal from the London Mayor, we will lose over the next three years over 2,000 affordable
02:06homes.
02:07It's unthinkable that we can agree to a 20% affordable home target.
02:13We need a mayor that can stand up for residents and push back against developers.
02:17This is about listening.
02:19It's about delivering the homes that we need.
02:21But we have a system that's completely geared around the profiteering of developers.
02:26And we've just, as a society, come to accept that that's the model of housing and house building that we
02:31should have.
02:32And this is about challenging that.
02:34It's about saying, no, we need to be expecting more from our development.
02:37And we need to be calling on the Mayor of London to make a difference, but also the government to
02:41provide that funding.
02:42Well, I mean, I don't believe there's been a proper consultation.
02:46I don't recall the Mayor of London, a lot of respect for his office, talking to us, the individual boroughs.
02:54That's what we want.
02:55We want to have that dialogue.
02:56We want to have that discussion.
02:57We want to have that discussion.
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