City Hall says 21,001 affordable homes have been started under its 2021–26 programme, taking the total above the upper end of a revised government target. The announcement follows both a reduction in the original target and an extension to the deadline for qualifying starts.
The figure for the £4 billion Affordable Homes Programme is 2,001 above the revised upper target of 19,000. It does not mean that 21,001 homes are complete or ready to move into: a start is a different stage of delivery from a completion.
The target and timetable have changed during the programme. An initial target of 35,000 starts, set in 2021, was revised to a range of 23,900 to 27,200 in 2023. In March 2025, it was reduced again, to between 17,800 and 19,000. City Hall says the latter revision followed significant increases in inflation and borrowing costs.
The original deadline for starts was March 2026. In May, the government agreed to allow extensions of up to six months on a case-by-case basis. The latest total therefore cannot be treated as having met the original target by the original deadline.
What the earlier figures showed
A London Assembly review published in July found that 14,335 homes had been started under the 2021–26 programme by March 2026. That was below even the lower end of the revised target at the original deadline. The later figure shows that the number of recorded starts has since risen beyond the top of the revised range.
The Assembly’s review also illustrates the difference between starting and completing homes. By March 2026, it reported, 2,607 homes under the programme had been completed and 11,728 started homes remained to be completed. Those are figures from March, not a current completion count for the 21,001 starts announced this week.
The same review said 79 per cent of the homes started under the programme by March were recorded as social rent. That category includes London Affordable Rent homes benchmarked against social rent levels. The percentage relates to the earlier total and should not be assumed to describe the full, later group of starts.
The wider housing picture
Separately, figures covering all City Hall affordable housing programmes show 876 starts in Barnet in 2025–26, with 776 recorded in the social rent category. The borough also recorded 629 completions across those programmes in that year. The Barnet figures cover more than the 2021–26 programme and are not a borough breakdown of the 21,001 total.
Completions in a particular year can include homes started in earlier years, so the borough’s starts and completions should not be read as stages reached by the same set of homes within that year.
The Assembly’s July review also looked beyond the mayoral programme. It found that London’s affordable housing stock grew by a net 8,184 homes in 2024–25, after accounting for losses as well as additions. The Greater London Authority has estimated that the capital needs a net 45,500 affordable homes a year between 2026 and 2036. Those figures describe the wider housing stock, not just homes funded through the programme.
For the next London Social and Affordable Homes Programme, covering 2026 to 2036, City Hall says up to £11.7 billion in government funding is available. It has offered at least £6 billion in a first round of allocations and says 60 per cent of that amount was offered to local authorities for council housing. An offer of funding is not the same as a completed home.
City Hall also points to a package agreed with government in March to help stalled developments, including a time-limited fast-track planning route for eligible schemes and £324 million for its Developer Investment Fund. The fund is intended to help stalled developments go ahead.
