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London鈥檚 failure to increase its rate of housebuilding is one of the main factors exacerbating the UK housing crisis, government figures have revealed, writes Joey Gardiner.

According to the government鈥檚 recently introduced standard method for assessing housing need, England needs to build 196,000 homes each year outside the capital.

Last year the regions came close to this target, providing 190,472 new homes, with all regions in the Midlands and Northern England exceeding their quotas. 

Read: Housebuilding by numbers: how many homes should London be building?

Read: Housing associations promise to work with London councils to get homes built

But in London the build rate declined, creating a gap between the measure of need 鈥� 77,000 homes a year 鈥� and the 31,723 homes built in the 12 months to April, a two-and-a-half-fold difference.

Consultant Stephen Hill, director at C20 Futureplanners, said: 鈥淲ith London you always come back to the big gap in perception of the scale of the problem. We鈥檝e never done these numbers we鈥檙e talking about. There鈥檚 a mismatch between expectations and the means of delivery.鈥�

Many in the industry have raised concerns about the policy direction of London mayor Sadiq Khan, who was elected two years ago promising to make building more homes his 鈥渟ingle biggest priority鈥� and pledging to build 65,000 homes a year.

Some have flagged Khan鈥檚 requirement for schemes to provide 35% affordable housing or else face lengthy review processes as an issue making some developments unviable.

Anthony Lee, head of development consultancy at BNP Paribas Real Estate, said developers in the capital were agreeing to these affordable housing levels to get consent but then finding they could not deliver.

Others said the draft London Plan, though not yet formally in effect, was already holding things up.

Dan Osborne, London planning director at consultant Barton Willmore, said councils are struggling to work out how to put the new policies around affordable housing into practice: 鈥淭he London Plan has put the cat amongst the pigeons. It鈥檚 very prescriptive and councils are taking a while to digest it. It seems like everything I鈥檓 working on is stalled in planning.鈥�

Published last December, the draft London Plan highlights a need for 66,000 homes a year in the capital, and proposes abolishing existing density limits to increase the number of homes delivered.

It says there is capacity in the capital to deliver 65,000 homes, primarily in identified 鈥渙pportunity areas鈥�, and sets out an ambition for half of all homes to be affordable. 

A spokesperson for Khan threw the blame back at developers, saying the fall-off in build rates was a symptom of developers having 鈥渂ecome addicted to soaring house prices,鈥� and questioned the value of simply building 鈥渕ore luxury flats鈥�.

The spokesperson said: 鈥淲e are now seeing the comedown, compounded by the government鈥檚 chaotic mishandling of Brexit. These figures confirm why [the mayor] has the right approach by focusing on building new council, social rented, and other genuinely affordable homes.鈥�