21/02/2014 BBC London News

Good evening and welcome. The Mayor has been heavily criticised for

failing to spend more than ?100 million allocated for housing. City

Hall had committed nearly ?300 million to building affordable homes

over the past year but has spent little more than half of it. Critics

say Boris Johnson is neglecting the pressing need for housing in London.

But his office says its on target for a record number of new homes.

Here's our political correspondent Karl Mercer. Here it comes. Here's

the concrete squirter. Building the homes that Londoners need has long

been a priority for the Mayor. What can possibly go wrong? At an east

London development back in November the Mayor admitted the issue hadn't

been properly addressed by politicians in the past. We have

probably built about half, or perhaps less than half, of the homes

that London needs. And the problem is now a crisis. But these documents

suggest the problems may not have gone away and reveal City Hall

hasn't spent the money it planned to this year on finishing new homes.

Under the National Affordable Housing Programme, City Hall had a

budget of ?207.7 million for the year but it says it will spend 138

million. An underspend of nearly ?70 million. It's a similar story for

the Affordable Homes Programme. Of the original budget of 76.1 million,

City Hall thinks it will spend just 25 million, a shortfall of ?51

million. That makes a total under spend on these two programmes of

?120 million this year. The Mayor says delivering affordable housing

is the most important priority for London but when it comes to actual

delivery, his record is abysmal. It's no good the Mayor's office

saying oh, we will reprofile this and we'll do it in the future. The

Mayor's own targets with the housing crisis faced in London now, demands

urgent action. This year, City Hall says it expects to finish 7,086

affordable homes for Londoners. That's the lowest level for the past

four years. I see this year as another example of the Mayor

striving to deliver more homes for Londoners. We've got the commitments

from developers to build homes. We're getting more commitments from

developers to build homes. We will pay them when they have built those

homes. Can you see why people would find it hard to say, we are striving

forward, it's been a good year, when the number of completed affordable

homes you built this year will be lower than for the last four years?

I can't... Over the two mayoral terms, the Mayor will deliver more

affordable homes in any point in the GLA's history.

It's a promise City Hall officials admit will be tough to meet. The

Mayor's office when confident they will get there. And say money not

spent this year will be spent in coming years. It's been a stressful

few weeks for people who live and work in the parts of Surrey and

Berkshire affected by the floods. But some are beginning to go back

into their properties. And for a number of firms, it's back to

business as usual. Nick Beake reports from Datchet. Datchet under

Thames ten days ago. Today a village that is still slowly drying out. At

Little Venice, it was a case of life imitating art. The family business

surrounded by water. But now, finally, they are ready to reopen.

The water, it came over and above skirting levels into the restaurant

and contaminated the fridges, so we had to wait for the health and

safety to give us the all clear. They came out early on Wednesday, so

we spent the last couple of days preparing everything which means

tonight we are back ready to rock 'n' roll and hopefully bring some

smiles back to the village. The extent of the damage occurred here,

on the floor. The repairs had been on hold here for the past two weeks.

Now, though, with a workshop open again, there's light at the end of

the tunnel. But the floods have cost them dear. We are doing between ten

and 12 cars a day, not a massive place, this. But if you average ?400

car, something like that, you can imagine how much money we've lost.

Other businesses are also getting back on their feet. But some are

finding the damage done is much worse than they first thought. Over

the road, this beauty salon is welcoming customers again. But

there's more disruption ahead. We've got a lot of work to do. We are open

at the moment but the electrics are quite damaged underneath.

Eventually, next week we have to lift the floor board and doing the

electrics and the salon will have to close maybe for about a month or so.

Last month this place was deluged but today it's more of a trickle.

And despite all this, businesses are once again up and running. Well, our

reporter Sonja Jessup is in Datchet and joins us now. This is the

restaurant you saw there in the report. It is reopened to light

after being closed for ten days and there have been quite a few

customers who've come in the door this evening. One said to me he just

wanted to support a local business. Let's speak to the manager. Good

evening. You are pleased with how it's going this evening but it

couldn't have come at a worse time for you. Exactly, this evening we

can to be more pleased with the turnout we have had, support from

the locals. It's been fantastic. But it did come at a horrendous time.

It's Valentine's Day, so you lost a lot of trade. Are you ensured for

that? We were closed all over Valentines, we lost out on one of

the biggest nights of the year. As far as insurance is concerned, we

have cover in some aspects, we're hoping no to get in touch with

insurance companies to get support because we needed. The Environment

Agency says there are still 27 flood warnings in place across the

south`east and businesses here are hoping things will start to get

better. Sonia, thanks very much. Well that's all from me. Have a

lovely weekend. Now the weather with Sara.

The good news for flood affected areas is the next few days will be

largely dry. A weekend of two halves. Bright for tomorrow. It will

be dull on Sunday with some drizzle around, too. A beautiful start of

the weekend tomorrow. Quite chilly in the morning. The wind picks up,

plenty of sunshine, and staying dry tomorrow. Temperatures above where

they should be for the time of year. Tomorrow night, it won't be as cold

as this coming night. That's because we have got more cloud moving

towards us. The rain is quite patchy drizzle and it is with us on and off

through much of Sunday. By Sunday afternoon things start to get a bit

brighter. I will leave you with the Outlook. Tom Shuffle knacker has the

National forecast in National forecast in a few seconds.

Some rain around on Monday. If you remember, this time last

week, we had some very vicious weather costing the country, the

storm on Friday night. Much quieter this Friday night and a much quieter

week. Come the weekend, the Atlantic is still a little fierce. We will

have some wind and rain in the forecast, too, but not all of us. In

fact, for some of us, the weekend will be fairly decent so let's see

what happens. This is the recent satellite picture. We have a window

of reasonably good weather. The cloud and low-pressure is heading in

our direction and this area of low-pressure unfortunately will

upset the weather across western areas of the UK over the next 24 and

48 hours. Now it's relatively quiet. A bit of a breeze and quite breezy

in the North of Scotland. Some showers around the country but the

vast majority, dry