Boris Johnson unveils £5bn London housing plan

London Mayor Boris Johnson today announced his £5bn plan to "jump-start" the capital’s housing market over the next three years.

Key features of Johnson's draft strategy for London include: resurrecting stalled residential developments; buying up unsold homes for affordable housing; bringing forward public land for new developments.

Nearly £2bn a year will be spent building new affordable homes and improving existing stock.

The conservative Mayor has already pledged to keep his predecessor Ken Livingstone's target of building 50,000 new affordable homes by 2011 - but he has dropped the requirement that 50% of homes on all new developments built in the capital should be affordable.

Johnson said: “The strategy focuses not only on the issues facing the housing market in these difficult times but the historic problems of affordability, homelessness and overcrowding.

"By enabling ordinary Londoners to move from being subsidisers to being investors in new homes, we will provide timely support to a struggling development sector and can expect a return on our investment in years to come”