A West London council has been criticised after revealing its plans to finish building just 40 affordable homes in a year.

Richmond Lib Dem councillors blamed “pitiful levels of delivery” on choices made under previous administrations.

The party vowed to build 1,000 affordable homes during the local elections in May, which saw the Lib Dems keep control after taking over from the Conservatives in 2018. 

A council report reveals the authority now plans to finish 40 affordable homes  in the borough between 2022 and 2023. 

At a meeting of the council’s adult, social services, health and housing committee on Monday (October 3), Labour campaigner Nick Dexter hit out at the authority for having “low ambition” with the 40-home target.

Mr Dexter said: “On the list of [key performance indicators], I note the low ambition of 40 affordable housing completions a year.

"At that rate, the Lib Dems will meet their election manifesto promise of 1,000 homes in 25 years’ time.

"But at least this is better than the level which the council achieved over the last 25 years so it is to be welcomed and I would welcome it.”

But Lib Dem councillor Jim Millard said the authority is on track to build 1,000 affordable homes.

He said: “The most important thing is to deliver now.

"Past performance doesn’t really give you much of a guarantee of analysing what we’re doing.

"We’ve got plans, we’re happy to put topline 1,000 affordable homes because we think we can deliver that and we’re on track to deliver it.

“The pitiful levels of delivery you’re seeing are the result of Conservative administrations’ choices before us – I’ve said that for years because when we came in in 2018 we couldn’t immediately start building houses.

"So we’re five years later now and we’re at the point thankfully where we can just about start to see things coming to fruition. 

"So I will ask you to judge us next year and the year after and the year after that, much more fairly on our delivery.” 

Ian Ruegg, head of housing enabling and projects at the council, warned it takes time to make changes in the borough as planning applications can take years.

He added: “As Councillor Millard said, we’ve sort of inherited a situation of very low affordable housing delivery from previous administrations and it takes a while to turn round the ship.

“So from a planning application being granted to when those units are then completed, [it] can take two to three years – even longer on large schemes. 

"So the actual results of affordable housing delivery in terms of completions will only start to come through in future years.”

He said there are five council-owned sites being progressed, including schemes for 100per cent affordable housing.

He said the council has a “pipeline over the next 10 years that will see the delivery of 1,000 affordable homes” but warned yearly predictions can be difficult due to construction delays.

The committee agreed the proposed key actions and indicators for 2022/23 set out in the report, including the completion of 40 affordable homes.