The Green Party has welcomed a commitment from Mayor Sadiq Khan not to sign any new funding agreements for estate regeneration schemes until new rules requiring a ballot of residents come into effect.
Announced last month and currently subject to consultation, the rules will ensure that all future schemes which receive City Hall funding are backed by those whose lives will be disrupted by the work
While the Mayor has no general power to order landholders to ballot residents, his status as a major funder of new housing provision gives him leverage over local councils and housing associations.
At Thursday’s Mayor’s Question Time session, Khan told Green Party London Assembly member Sian Berry that while he couldn’t retrospectively change any existing agreements, no further funding would be made available until after his new rules are in operation.
Berry later said she had been “expecting all kinds of horses for courses stuff about signing things off in the meantime,” and added that the Mayor’s firm commitment “should reassure a few groups of residents whose councils are trying to say they will be an exception.”
