Labour’s home-building pledge faces another threat as new-build projects across London are left abandoned. Work has stopped at one in six housing construction projects across England’s capital, according to a report by Molior Consultancy. Some of these included more than 20 private homes and, in total, could have provided up to 5,400 homes for Londoners.
In the northwest of the city, Heron House has stood deserted since 2022, when workers upped their tools and never returned. The construction project in Brent was meant to provide the community with 40 affordable homes, but it is now covered in tarpaulin and overgrown with weeds.
Suzannah Taylor, executive director of development at PA Housing, which is behind Heron House, said work stopped because of “the insolvency of the original contractor commissioned to construct the project”.
She added: “We are working to appoint a new contractor to complete the scheme and deliver these affordable homes.”
This could prove damaging for Labour’s pledge to build 1.5 million homes by the end of the Parliament, with 80,000 going up in London every year.
Ben Walden-Jones, head of residential development at real estate company JLL, claimed the current situation is worse than the 2008 financial crisis.
He told The Telegraph: “Whereas we usually would have at least two launches a month in London, we now only get about one launch every two months. It’s as low as five schemes a year coming through.
“It’s a trickle. And the number of sales that we’re doing has just collapsed. Our competitors are in the same boat. No one is having any better luck, really.”
According to Molior Consultancy, property sales in 2025 are expected to drop below 10,000, which would be lower than in 2008.
Between 2015 and 2020, between 60,000 and 65,000 homes for private sale or rent were under construction at any given moment.
However, this number is expected to drop to between 15,000 and 20,000 by the beginning of 2027.