Mayor's draft London Plan proposes 558,000 homes and a return to 35% thresholds

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, published a draft London Plan on 16 July setting a framework the Greater London Authority's press release says will "help to deliver as many as 558,000 new homes by 2037". That works out at about 50,000 homes a year over the 11 years to 2037.

The draft plan changes the affordable housing threshold that decides which schemes take the quicker planning route. The release states the plan will "move the threshold back to 35 per cent from 2028 for as many boroughs as possible (over a third)". It does not set out borough-by-borough figures.

On the headline percentage, the release states: "The Mayor's strategic target remains 50 per cent affordable housing, and applications can still go higher; these revised percentage thresholds simply dictate eligibility for the Fast-Track planning approach."

Delivery under the Mayor's current affordable programme has run behind its own targets. The London Assembly's research unit published its Affordable Housing Monitor on 8 July, and the Assembly's release records 14,335 affordable homes started under the 2021-26 programme against a target of 17,800 to 19,000, with 11,383 of those starts for social rent.

The same release records 8,184 net additional affordable homes in 2024-25, against an estimated need of 45,500 new affordable homes every year over the next decade. It puts 341,421 households on waiting lists in March 2025.

Lord Bailey of Paddington AM, chairman of the Assembly's housing committee, said in that release: "Affordable housing delivery is still falling far short of what London needs."

Empty homes have risen over the same period. The Assembly's housing committee, which met on 7 July, published figures showing empty homes in London rose by "81 per cent between 2016-2025", from 58,096 to 105,138, with long-term empty homes up 138 per cent to 47,287.

On green belt land, the mayoral release states that limited areas may be considered for release "where this is supported by evidence and delivers clear public benefits".

The release does not compare the 558,000 figure with the ten-year housing target in the adopted 2021 London Plan, and gives no completions figure. The plan's Policy H1 pages and the London Plan Annual Monitoring Reports on the GLA website could not be consulted for this story.

The release describes the draft plan as "nearly half the length of the 2021 plan".

On the labour to build any of it, the Mayor announced £88.6m on 27 July for construction training, funding more than 20,000 construction courses. That release states the money "comes as the Mayor works to accelerate housebuilding across the capital as set out in his draft London Plan, published earlier this month".

The consultation runs "from 16 July to 15 October 2026", leaving Londoners and boroughs two months to respond. The mayoral release states the draft plan will then "be subject to an independent Examination in Public before final adoption, expected in early 2028".