More than £32m has been awarded to pay for hundreds of council houses in Greenwich, the Mayor has announced.

Greenwich Council bid for millions of pounds under Sadiq Khan’s Building Council Homes for Londoners initiative earlier this year.

At the time, Greenwich Council told this newspaper that building council houses was the only way out of the capital’s housing crisis.

Today (October 23), City Hall announced that 26 councils – including Greenwich – would receive part of the Mayor’s £1.3bn investments.

Plans, signed off earlier this month, are in the works to build more than 700 council homes in the borough over the next four years.

The Mayor’s £32.6m will go towards building 588 new homes, although the council says it has identified enough other sites to deliver up to 800 houses by 2030.

Cabinet member for housing, councillor Chris Kirby, said: “Earlier this month we agreed to set ourselves an ambitious housing delivery programme which is one of our key priorities, and the Mayor’s £32m allocation will mean that we can step up our programme to build good quality homes for social rent, which we will start building by 2022.

“We are determined to build even more council homes and are exploring ways of funding this. The £32m Building Homes for Londoners allocation will be a vital step towards accommodating residents’ social housing needs.”

Councils built 2,100 homes in London in the seven years to March 2017, compared with just 70 in the preceding seven years.

Greenwich and Lewisham were the only south east London borough’s to be given part of the Mayor’s allocation, receiving £32 and £37.7m respectively.

Councillor Danny Thorpe, the leader of the council, said: “I am delighted that the Mayor of London has allocated £32m to the borough from his Building Council Homes for Londoners programme. This is fantastic news and will help many waiting for much-needed housing in the borough.

“We are in the grip of a nationwide housing crisis. In the Greenwich alone we have 17,000 households on our housing register and have the highest number – over 800 – of homeless households living in temporary accommodation in the past 10 years.”

The dedicated to council  housing programme “will see more than 11,000 new homes at social rent levels”, according to City Hall.

Sadiq Khan said there is “no simple fix” to the capital’s housing crisis,  but warned lifiting borrowing caps for councils would not be enough to tackle the issue.

Under the council’s housing proposals Meridian Home Start, its arms-length development company, will deliver a further 300 homes.

Opposition leader, Cllr Matt Hartley, said he was happy the borough was getting a share of the cash. 

He said: "This money is actually part of funding provided by the Government for housebuilding across London - and I'm pleased that Greenwich will be getting a share.

"With the Prime Minister's separate announcement that the borrowing cap is to be lifted, we can expect more progress ahead."