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Cue protracted negotiations and piles of paperwork. The developers refused to build that many affordable homes because it wouldn't be profitable; the GLA wouldn't compromise. Clark's team feared the tough target would scare off the developers. Eventually, after almost two months, Clark managed to convince the GLA to accept affordable housing away from the development in question, the amount to be decided later. "The negotiations were hard and it became quite a panic," Clark says. "The GLA wasn't budging and neither was the developer. It really was a difficult process."

Merton's situation, although now resolved, is just one example of the impact of the affordable housing edicts in Livingstone's draft London plan. Launched in June last year, this 400-page policy document is the mayor's blueprint for the capital over the next 20 years (see "What's in the plan", right). Among its recommendations is that 50% target. For two-thirds of the capital's boroughs, a 50% absolute minimum was set. In the remainder, the minimum was set at 35%, meaning all boroughs would have to significantly exceed their targets for the overall 50% level to be reached.

So far, however, just six boroughs – Camden, Croydon, Hammersmith & Fulham, Waltham Forest, Ealing and Lambeth – are matching or exceeding Livingstone's targets (see table, right). Other councils maintain that the targets are absurdly over-ambitious.

Greenwich council in south-east London has just passed plans for the 10,000-home redevelopment of the Millennium Dome and accepted that 35% of the housing is affordable. The mayor, though, insists on 50% and is expected to make a decision in the next few weeks as to whether the scheme can go ahead or not. The trouble is, Meridian Delta, the site's new owner, has a get-out clause that allows it to walk away from the deal if the council tries to force it to make more than 35% of the housing affordable (HT 25 April, page 8).

The mayor's stubbornness is a recipe for disaster, says Dino Patel, London policy officer at the National Housing Federation: "There has to be flexibility or it won't work." Pierre Williams, spokesman for the House Builders Federation, agrees: "The mayor's insistence on a 50% target will inevitably result in the failure of his desire to see affordable housing. We agree that London needs more homes, but insistence on more homes without the maths behind it will simply not work."

The property gap
The gulf between Livingstone's rhetoric and the boroughs' reality is related to the property market. In property hotspots where developers have profit-making incentives, it can be easier to cross-subsidise social housing. But developers faced with unprofitable housing schemes may decide to build other types of development – shops and offices, for example – or they may simply pull out of a deal altogether. When developers and housebuilders refuse to produce enough social housing, there is little councils can do but negotiate; when the GLA's rigid adherence to its targets removes this option, the resulting stalemate can mean no housing at all, as may happen in Greenwich.

Aside from the fact that developers' desire for profit can dissuade them from hitting the targets, there are other reasons that councils are reluctant to accept Livingstone's wish list. Some councils, says housing specialist Roger Humber, don't need any more social housing. Instead, he says, they want more general housing: "Barking & Dagenham, for instance, is looking for long-term regeneration and a social mix in the area. They just don't want more social housing."

Even so, some boroughs have managed to exceed Livingstone's magic number. Hammersmith & Fulham, for instance, has set its own target of 65%. Its success can be partly attributed to its skill at negotiating with developers – something that many council officers have little experience of. In addition, the area is attractive to developers that can sell high-cost housing on site and therefore more easily cross-subsidise the affordable element. "Some housebuilders are becoming more pragmatic in their negotiating," says Steve Douglas, director of investment and regeneration for London at the Housing Corporation.

Ask the mayor's representatives and, in an effort to encourage councils to hit the high targets, they say the GLA is willing to compromise. Eleanor Young, planning policy adviser to the mayor, says: "The target is a benchmark that the councils should be aiming at. We understand they can't all achieve it and we see the 50% as something to aim for. Of course there is always room for negotiation." And in an attempt to chivvy the boroughs towards the affordable aims, the GLA has come up with a toolkit to shorten the planning stage – a computer program that helps assess the maximum reasonable levels of affordable housing that can be sustained in new private developments.

Since the draft plan's launch, the government has appointed an independent panel of experts to report back on the target's feasibility in July. After this report has been published, and subject to comments from deputy prime minister John Prescott, the mayor will publish the final version of his plan by the end of the year.

The London plan targets may change after the July report, but there is a way that the issue could be resolved. The answer could lie, say some housing professionals, in the handful of councils that are exceeding the target. "For some projects, the target could be higher and for others lower," says Dickon Robinson, the Peabody Trust's director of development and planning. "What's important is the overall target."

The mayor's target of 50% for the whole of London could still be achieved if boroughs that exceeded the mark made up for those which don't.

But that will only come about if the GLA and the housebuilders can be consistently flexible. As Merton's Steve Clark says: "We look on the 50% mark as a negotiating tool. As long as the GLA is reasonable and pragmatic about the target and takes into account all the factors involved, then we won't have any more headaches."