Boris slammed over affordable homes 'double-count'
Monday, 5 September 2011 12:19 PM
The office of London mayor Boris Johnson is under attack for allegedly double-counting statistics for new affordable homes in the capital.
Johnson’s housing adviser Richard Blakeway claimed in an article in the Guardian that the administration would not only hit its target of 50,000 affordable homes by April 2012 but also deliver 54,000 completions over the next four years.
"The suggestions that the London Plan will lead to an attack on social housing and a form of social segregation are entirely unfounded," he said.
But Labour’s London Assembly member for housing Nicky Gavron wrote to Blakeway accusing him of including 16,000 homes in both figures.
According to a report on InsideHousing.co.uk, she told him: "I am extremely concerned at the way the mayor’s office has apparently double-counted this information. At best it is a lazy, yet very important, error. At worst you have blatantly misled Londoners on your housing delivery."
A spokesperson for the mayor responded: "We have always sought to distinguish between the 2008-11 and the 2011-15 investment rounds and we’ve always been clear that the programme for the new investment round would include existing commitments."
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