Southwark Council Started Zero Council Homes in Last Year

Liberal Democrats have eviscerated a Labour council’s housebuilding claims as it reveals exclusive statistics showing that the council started building zero council homes in 2024/2025, down from 28 the previous year – already a drop of 96% on the previous year.

The freeze on house building comes following a report from Parliament’s cross-party Housing Committee, chaired by local Labour MP Florence Eshalomi, which slammed local authorities for the poor quality of temporary accommodation, and its use of “out of borough” properties, saying that the shortage of social housing was to blame. In Southwark, 50% of temporary housing is outside of the borough due to lack of availability of council housing. 

It also comes after a wave of protests against private developments which provide an “unacceptably low” level of social housing. The most recent, Borough Triangle, is to provide 17% social housing, the controversial Aylesham development  in Peckham is proppsoing just 12%, and Canada Water even less at 10% social housing. 

With Southwark’s social housing waiting list continue to climb to around 19,000 households, and reports from Shelter saying that 1 in 38 would be homeless over Christmas, the Liberal Democrats say these latest statistics will have residents asking what the Labour party is actually doing to combat the housing crisis.

Commenting Liberal Democrat Leader of the Opposition Cllr Victor Chamberlain said:

“This blows a massive hole in Labour’s spin about housing. For the council to have failed to start building a single council home in the last year is nothing short of a dereliction of duty. If our Labour council can’t stand up to developers who are putting profit before people, and it’s failing to build their own council homes, how can anyone have confidence in them to solve the housing crisis? 

With Labour now holding every lever of power from council to Government, it could not be clearer who is responsible for this failure.”