FAMILIES on the housing waiting list in London’s overcrowded East End are about to be dealt a blow with Government budgets expected to be halved after 2011, City Hall figures reveal. The length of social housing waiting lists is likely to double again in the next 10 years

By Mike Brooke

FAMILIES on the housing waiting list in London’s overcrowded East End are about to be dealt a blow with Government budgets expected to be halved after 2011, City Hall figures reveal.

Both the cost of buying a home and the length of social housing waiting lists are likely to double again in the next 10 years in London, according to a London Assembly report today.

Programmes aimed at making housing more affordable’ have failed to stop costs doubling, while average waiting lists have shot up by 82 per cent over the last decade, according to London Assembly member Jenny Jones’s report.

The East End has one of the largest ratios of families in overcrowded conditions with a 10-year waiting list well over 30,000.

It will take Tower Hamlets until 2020 to provide adequate housing for everyone on its social housing list if current trends continue, the report points out.

The Government is expected to halve the overall public capital investment, which helps developers build social housing and social landlords to refurbish existing properties, from the current �50 billion to �23bn in 2014-15.

The Assembly is calling on Boris Johnson not to give developers subsidies to put up “barely-affordable” homes that quickly become completely unaffordable. They want the Mayor to direct funds instead towards long-term investment in housing that stays in the public sector and remains permanently affordable.