London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Sadiq Khan accused of ‘trying to chuck up any old c**p’ to meet housing targets

Sadiq Khan accused of ‘trying to chuck up any old c**p’ to meet housing targets

The Mayor hit back at the claim from his political opponent, defending his record on home delivery

Sadiq Khan has been accused of “trying to chuck up any old c**p” in the form of tower blocks to meet his housing targets.

The Mayor defended his record when it came to delivering affordable homes and said the Conservatives were “in no fit state to lecture” him on tall buildings, because of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The accusation was made by Andrew Boff, a Conservative member of the London Assembly, at a ‘People’s Question Time’ event in Ealing on Thursday.

Mr Boff said: “His administration is now so panic-stricken [about reaching affordable housing targets], they’re trying to chuck up any old c**p in order to get the numbers going.

“So we’ve got tower blocks being built where people don’t want them and the very kind of home that Londoners need, family-sized homes with a door at the front and a small garden at the back - that’s exactly what he’s not building.”

Andrew Boff, a Conservative member of the London Assembly

His comments came in response to a question from an audience member, who told the Mayor: “It’s great that you’re building what you call homes and houses, but they’re not. They’re not the everyday homes and houses that everybody should have, with a little bit of garden and a little bit of space.


“They’re all these huge flats, 14 storeys, 20 storeys, 26 storeys, which you want to build here, in places that don’t need those flats. We need homes, we need houses, we need to be able to meld the area to be the same and not have this odd [block of] flat[s] here and there.”

Replying to the question, Mr Khan said: “We now have as a requirement in relation to the London Plan [a mayoral policy document], that when it comes to homes being built, they need to build in amenity space.

“We also require councils to carry out an assessment of the amount of family homes that are needed - that’s not just the one-bedroom and the two-bedroom, which you often see in the big [blocks of] flats, but also three bedrooms and four bedrooms as well.”

He added that City Hall was supporting developers to build family-sized homes with decent outdoor space, but the government’s grant system did not provide sufficient incentives for developers to build homes rather than flats.

“That’s why we need to work on the government to make sure the grant system works better,” he said, adding that his administration was building “record numbers of all-size homes”.

Sadiq Khan, speaking at the People’s Question Time event on Thursday evening


Addressing the audience shortly afterwards, Mr Boff said: “The Mayor’s record on housing is uniquely poor. He’s been given a record amount of money to spend on housing in London. The government’s been enormously generous, over £9 billion in order to get that affordable housing done, and he still has 18,000 homes to start by the end of this month.”

He went on to claim that Mr Khan’s administration was “trying to chuck up any old crap in order to get the numbers going”, which he said consisted of unwanted tower blocks.

The Mayor hit back at the claim, saying: “The party responsible for running the council that led to the Grenfell Tower tragedy are in no fit state to lecture me about the quality of housing and the concerns around tall buildings.

“Let’s look at their record. In Boris Johnson’s last year as Mayor, three social rent homes [were] begun in London. Last year, 9,698. That’s the difference between a Tory and a Labour [mayor].

“Last year, we began building more council homes than any year since the 1970s. That’s the difference between the Tories and Labour - and by the way, last year we completed more homes in London than at any time since the 1930s.”

The event at Ealing Town Hall was frequently interrupted by members of the audience, with the topic of the Mayor’s planned Ulez expansion dominating the evening.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×