Taxpayers may need to bail out Sadiq Khan’s London housing fund, say auditors
Taxpayers may need to bail out Sadiq Khan’s London housing fund, say auditors
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GLAP missed repayment deadlines for £300m government loan and concerns raised over poor management. Taxpayers may be forced to bail out Sadiq Khan’s London housing fund, after it repeatedly missed repayment deadlines for a £300m government loan and its auditors raised concerns over poor management.
The London mayor’s property development vehicle, known as Greater London Authority Land and Property Limited (GLAP), inherited the £300m debt when it was formed under Boris Johnson in 2012, after a merger of other public development bodies. The fund, which is one of the largest public sector land owners in the UK, is meant to create thousands of new homes on its land in an effort to ease the country’s housing crisis.
The developer is a commercial, wholly owned subsidiary of the Great London Authority – and the money was due for repayment to the GLA in 2018. However, GLAP has repeatedly missed repayment deadlines over the past six years, and only made an initial payment earlier this year, according to documents obtained by the London Centric website and also seen by the Financial Times.
The fund owns 635 hectares (1569 acres) of land across the city, mostly in the London Docklands redevelopment area and on the Greenwich Peninsula near the O2 – areas that have been tipped for heavy development. Internal audit documents reportedly raised concerns last year over poor management and decision-making at the fund. Internal auditors were “not provided with evidence” about why repayments were repeatedly missed.
