“Homeownership is an impossible dream for millions of Londoners,” says a Conservative politician, who claims Mayor of London Sadiq Khan will not meet his affordable housing targets this year.

New figures have revealed that in the first nine months of this financial year – from April 2018 to December 2018 – 6,066 affordable homes started to be built by the Greater London Authority.

Mr Khan’s target for this financial year is a total of 14,000 affordable homes, which means he needs to start building nearly 8,000 more by April.

Conservative London Assembly Member, Andrew Boff, says Mr Khan, will not meet these targets.

Mr Boff said: “These are yet another set of deeply disappointing housing statistics that demonstrate the Mayor is simply failing to get London building.

“To hit his housing targets the Mayor needs to be building a minimum of 14,000 homes per year.

“Yet in the first nine months of this financial year, Khan has presided over a mere 6,000 new housing starts. Unless the Mayor builds another 8,000 homes by April, he will fail to reach his own targets.

“Due to this Mayor’s lack of drive and failure to get a grip on the housing crisis, homeownership is becoming even more of an impossible dream for millions of Londoners.”

But Mr Khan branded these comments “disingenuous nonsense”.

A spokesperson for Mr Khan said: “The Mayor surpassed his housing target last year – starting more social and affordable homes than ever before – and is firmly on track to hit the even higher target this year.

“Quarterly numbers increase towards the end of the financial period in all housing programmes, as Assembly Member Boff knows full well.”

In 2017 12,555 genuinely affordable homes started being built in the capital.

Mr Khan has an affordable housing target of 116,000 by 2022.