In the first week of September the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, made no less than five housing announcements in the run up to the publication of his draft Housing Strategy for London.

Khan warned: “The housing crisis is the biggest challenge facing our city today and I’ve been honest with Londoners from the start – we won’t turn things round overnight. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint and we need to be able to take robust action to tackle it.”

The underlying cause of London’s housing crisis is a long-running mismatch between a high level of need and a low level of new housebuilding. The number of new homes being built every year in London has been stuck around the low 20,000s for some time. According to the mayor’s draft housing strategy for the capital, London needs enough land to build more than 50,000 new homes every year for the next 25 years.

The draft states that the average cost of a one bedroom property in London costs more than a three bedroom home in every other region in England. Home ownership is declining, and over 90,000 children live in temporary accommodation, whilst one in 50 Londoners are homeless. The three month consultation period on the draft London Housing Strategy will end on 7th December. Below is a summary of what it pledges.