New Leiwsham mayor Damien Egan is bidding for at least £50 million worth of funding for council homes – money which could build 500 new homes.

Mr Egan announced he would be bidding for the City Hall money, which comes from a £1.67 billion special-funding pot to help boost the building of council homes in London.

Mr Egan said: “I am delighted to support the launch of this vital new housing initiative from the Mayor of London. We will bid for at least £50million from the council house building fund.

“Building Council Homes for Londoners shows how councils and City Hall can work together to tackle the housing crisis and I confirm today that Lewisham will be a dedicated partner to Sadiq in delivering the new council homes that we need.

“Lewisham is committed to building new and genuinely affordable council homes in our borough with stable and secure tenancies. We will deliver 1,000 new social homes in Lewisham, which is just one part of our wide ranging approach to tackling the housing crisis.”

The number of affordable rental homes in Lewisham have nearly halved in just seven years, more than doubling the number of homeless families in temporary accommodation in the borough.

In 2010/2011 there were 1,890 affordable rental lets, with 920 households in temporary accommodation.

Projected affordable rentals for 2017/2018 are 1,147 with 1,959 homeless families in temporary accommodation.

Lewisham Council spent more than £4.6 million on emergency accommodation in six months from September 2017 to February this year – spending more than £1.3 million in December.

Lewisham Council’s raw data on spending shows the total amount spent on bed and breakfast accommodation varied from £266,487.83 in September, to £1,332,940.88 in December.