Mayor calls for London housing body

The mayor of London has called for a London housing and regeneration body to be set up from a merger of the capital’s part of the Homes and Communities Agency and the London Development Agency.

Boris Johnson said the merged body should be formed as an executive arm of the Greater London Authority, rather than a separate body in its own right. Johnson also put his weight behind Tory plans, launched in the run-up to the general election, to merge the Olympic Park Legacy Company with other east London regeneration bodies to form a Mayoral Development Corporation.

Housing minister Grant Shapps has already said he supports devolving parts of the HCA to the London mayor, although the precise extent of the functions has not so far been clarified.

Johnson said that, as one of the few genuine “world cities”, London needed city leadership to match. He said: “The mayoralty has few formal powers, despite substantial informal powers. This will no longer do.

“Too much is controlled by Whitehall and measured by standards that don’t apply specifically to Londoners. It is time to act, and with a new coalition government strongly supportive of devolving powers. This is why I am proposing a reshaped GLA group and a new chapter in the devolution of Whitehall functions to City Hall.”

In response to the announcement, communities secretary Eric Pickles, who will make the final decision, said: “The new government is committed to genuine  decentralisation of power. In London, this means transferring power and  responsibility down from Whitehall and its quangos progressively downwards to City Hall, to London boroughs and to local neighbourhoods.

“Our Localism Bill in the autumn will provide an opportunity to amend legislation accordingly.”

Transferring all of the functions of the HCA in London to the mayor would have a serious impact on the national agency, which this year will spend 44% of all of its social housing grant allocation in the capital.

Harvey McGrath, chair of the London Development Agency, who was appointed by Johnson after his mayoral victory in 2008, has already responded by saying he supports the move. He said: “As chair of the LDA Board, I support the direction of travel for the Greater London Authority and the LDA as proposed by the mayor.

“The proposals for increased mayoral powers are a logical extension of existing arrangements and should mean less bureaucracy and greater efficiencies so that more funds can be directed to services that benefit Londoners.”