The Mayor of London has announced funding for 10,000 new council houses across London in the next four years – Waltham Forest has struck the first funding deal.

Sadiq Khan’s team has set aside a total of £1.67 billion to boost building of council homes across the capital.

Waltham Forest Council leader Clare Coghill made the deal Mr Khan yesterday.

The borough is set to build 525 new council homes with £26million from City Hall.

Many council houses were built in the 1970s but since then, the rate of building has slowed down.

London councils have only built 2,100 homes over the last seven years and a total of 300 were completed in 2017.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “I grew up on a council estate and I know first-hand the vital role social housing plays in London. Council homes for social rent bind our city together, and they have been built thanks to the ambition of London’s councils over many decades.

“I want to help councils get back to building homes for Londoners again, and I am offering councils expertise and resources from City Hall to scale up their homebuilding programmes, and I will help them to replace homes sold through Right to Buy.

“I will do all I can to help councils replace as many of them as possible.”

Clare Coghill, leader of Waltham Forest Council said: “This money will give a massive boost to the number of council homes we can build helping to reduce the thousands of people on our housing waiting list and achieve our priority of putting a decent roof over our resident’s heads.

“We are doing all we can to reduce the effect the housing crisis has on families and individuals, but we need the Government to do more to help us build the homes that London so desperately needs.”