THOUSANDS of new homes to be built in the borough will not increase the population, a councillor said.

Following the Mayor of London's announcement last week that Waltham Forest must have 7,600 more homes in 12 years, housing cabinet member Marie Pye has said most of these will be to re-home existing borough residents.

She said: “We are not meeting the demand that is already here in the borough. We have 13,000 people on the waiting list and we don't want people who have ties here to have to move out of the borough to find somewhere to live.

“There is a problem with overcrowding, people living in one-bedroom houses with three teenagers. How can students study for their GCSEs like that?

"It is about providing for all those families. It is not about increasing the population of the borough.”

Cllr Pye said that most of the new homes will be built in pockets of land around the borough by one of the five housing associations the council is in partnership with – though no specific sites have been earmarked.

The council is also putting in a bid at the end of this month to central Government for 50 units of housing to be built on land the council already owns.

Cllr Pye said she welcomes the “challenge” set by Boris Johnson in the London Plan and though she admits the council cannot make a firm guarantee that it will be met because of the current economic climate, it will aim to do so.

She said: “We will do our best to work with our partners to ensure it is met, not because of the London Mayor's targets, but because of the 13,000 people on our housing waiting list. We need it to be done for them.”

There are also as many as 2,000 empty properties in the borough at any one time, both privately owned and council properties, which Cllr Pye said the council has a rolling programme to identify ones that have been empty long-term to try to get them filled.