Mayor's plan to open housing waiting lists

The Mayor wants to scrap waiting lists that give preference to applicants in their "home" borough and instead make all new social housing equally available to all Londoners.

The plan has angered London's local authorities, which fear residents will object to new housing developments if their families are no longer given priority over non-residents.

More than 300,000 households are on council waiting lists in the capital, 50 per cent more than in 2001.

Jamie Carswell, London Councils' executive member for housing, said: "It is essential that local people have a stake in the new homes that boroughs are building."

The proposals, part of the Mayor's draft housing strategy, would see all new affordable homes - those built for rent or part-purchase - being put into a London-wide pot by January 2009.

A system called Capital Moves is being devised to encourage councils to make five per cent of their existing stock - and those housing association properties to which they have nominationrights - available to residents of other London boroughs.

However, this only equates to 1,700 homes a year, effectively one home becoming available per week in each borough.

The Mayor wants this figure to increase to 25 per cent by 2012 and further-in subsequent years. He also wants more effort made to help the estimated 42,000 Londoners willing to leave the capital to find new homes in areas with over-capacity, helping to free up properties.

Mr Livingstone said: "Each borough takes a very narrow view looking after its own waiting list, offering no more than a handful of lettings to people from other parts of the city.

"When you look at the size of some boroughs the idea that there's an iron curtain between, for example, Hammersmith and Kensington or Islington and Camden, where people move across those boundaries for employment all the time, [is wrong].

"If we're to get people out of long term unemployment, one of the ways is to enable them to move to where the jobs are. That's one of the main driving factors in this."

Under the Greater London Authority Act, which received royal assent last month, the Mayor gained control of the Government's £1billion-a-year affordable housing budget and can set policies for the boroughs to follow.

But London Councils believes he has become "obsessed" with targets and says there is no evidence that huge numbers of people want to move around the capital.

Nigel Kersey of the Council for the Protection of England said it was vital to provide homes for key workers as they were the wage-earners who contributed to the economy.