Sadiq Khan helps celebrate 1,000 new council homes milestone

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan joined Haringey Council leader Peray Ahmet, local MPs and a TV presenter to mark the achievement, reports Maria Hille

Sadiq Khan, Haringey Council leader Peray Ahmet, local MPs and deputy mayor of London Tom Copley celebrate 1,000 council homes in Haringey
(credit City Hall/Caroline Teo)

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has helped Haringey celebrate a major housing milestone – alongside a TV presenter.

Presenter and architect George Clarke joined the visit to one of the capital’s largest social housing developments, in Tottenham Hale, with Haringey Council leader Peray Ahmet and local MPs Bambos Charalambous and Catherine West also in attendance.

They were visiting the new ‘Wingspan Walk’ development, which received £43.5million in City Hall funding. The new development contains 272 energy-efficient homes available for social rent, situated on previously disused land close to Tottenham Hale train station. Residents have access to nearby Down Lane Park, two communal courtyards and cycle storage facilities.

The visit marked Haringey Council’s completion of 1,000 new green council homes in the borough. Haringey’s housebuilding programme is one of the second biggest in the country for building the most social rent homes and is “on track” to deliver at least 3,000 council homes by 2031.

The Wingspan Walk scheme is one of the largest in Haringey’s programme, which includes others such as Walter Tull House in Tottenham Hale, Nilgun Canver Court in Wood Green and Watts Close in Tottenham, the council’s first zero-carbon development.

During the visit, Khan and Clarke met with residents and shared their memories of growing up on housing estates. Clarke, who is an ambassador for Shelter, grew up on a council estate in Tyne and Wear.

Clarke said during the visit: “I have been calling on governments and councils to build good quality, sustainable versions of the childhood council home I grew up in for a long time, so it was a pleasure to join Sadiq Khan in a visit to Wingspan Walk which has been made possible through City Hall funding.”

The newest development is a landmark project built under the mayor’s Affordable Homes Programme. This year the mayor is urging housing associations and councils to bid for a record government investment of £11.7billion through the programme and has set a goal of 40,000 new council homes by the end of the decade.

The success comes after Khan was accused of failing to tackle the capital’s housing crisis in August last year, after figures showed that at the time the Mayor was roughly 12,300 short of the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)’s affordable homes target. This is despite the fact that this target was 22% lower than the previous target between 2021 and 2026.

Khan said: “As mayor, I am absolutely determined to tackle our urgent housing crisis and continue to do everything in my power to deliver more homes of all tenures, building on the progress we have already made, as we build a better, fairer, more prosperous city for everyone.”

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