Assembly member Tom Copley to be deputy mayor for housing
Sadiq Khan has appointed London assembly member Tom Copley to be his deputy mayor for housing and residential development.
In the role he will set strategy and policy for housing in the capital and be one of the most influential politicians in the sector.
Copley has been a member of the London Assembly since 2012 and has since served as chair of the assembly’s housing committee.
A councillor in Lewisham, he is a long-time campaigner on housing issues and particularly council housing. His start date has yet to be finalised but he will have to step down as a councillor and assembly member at the Greater London Authority.
Copley said he was delighted to have been asked to take up the role. He said: “Since the mayor was elected in 2016, City Hall has taken a much more ambitious approach to tackling the housing crisis, including directly funding council housing for the first time.
”I look forward to building on that work in order to deliver the genuinely affordable homes that Londoners need.
“Our goal should be a city where everyone has access to a decent home that they can afford. I will work together with London’s councils, housing associations, homelessness charities and housing campaigners towards achieving that goal.”
Khan said Copley had become a leading voice in UK housing policy, and described him as a “relentless campaigner for the rights of council tenants and those renting in the private rented sector”.
Copley has written reports on the negative impact of the right to buy policy in the capital, and of the government’s permitted development planning deregulations.
A committed republican, Copley caused controversy in 2013 by suggesting that the Queen move out of Buckingham Palace so it could be turned into council flats, comments that he later insisted were meant as a joke.
Copley’s predecessor James Murray resigned as deputy mayor to stand as a Labour MP. He was elected in December to represent Ealing North.
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