London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 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
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×