Lewisham Mayor Damien Egan has said the council’s planning department needs to be more “robust” to help ensure social housing targets are met.

This comes as a number of developments approved by the planning committee fell short of the council’s strategic target for 50 per cent affordable homes across all developments.

Figures from 2017 – 2018 also show only one of the 450 homes built in the year was for social rent, with only five affordable – up to 80 per cent of the market rate.

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Speaking at a full council meeting, concerned resident Shaka Anderson said: “The latest projects approved by the council since the election of the mayor fall far short of the 50 per cent that was promised in the manifesto.”

This includes the Conington Road development, which will see 16 of the 365 flats rented at social rent levels, 27 affordable and 30 as discount market rate.

It also includes the Lewisham Gateway development which has only London living rent flats but was granted outline planning permission in 2009.

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The Mayor said the 50 per cent target was strategic, “so…we should be trying to get as close to that as possible.”

“In conversations I am having with developers I’m being very clear about that [50 per cent strategic target]. I’ll admit it’s trickier for developments which already have permission, but certainly on the new ones coming in,” he said.

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He said the council’s planning department was visiting Islington Council which has had “success in financing social housing.”

“We’ll take some of the team out there and learn some lessons there,” he said.

“One of the themes today, coming from us as councillors, we also need the planning department to be more robust in those early conversations [with developers].”

Mr Egan has pledged to build 1,000 more social homes by 2022, with the full plans for potential developments to be made public next month.