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London needs 50,000 new affordable homes to be built over the next four years, with 300,000 people waiting for a house.

However, thanks to the credit crunch building projects across the capital are being re-jigged, revised and in some cases scrapped altogether.

Jon Reseigh

Fewer homes being built?

Ten years ago the Greenwich Peninsula was earmarked for thousands of new homes - but now there's concern at the rate they are being built and becoming available.

That is bad news for people like Jon Reseigh, who has recently become unemployed and separated from his partner.

"I've actually had to sign on for the first time in 20 years - which I haven't done since the last recession."

"It is very depressing - you don鈥檛 know what is going to happen one day to the next."

He has been told he has got to wait up to seven years to get a council house from the local authority in Greenwich.

Greenwich Peninsula crane

To regenerate, or not to regenerate

With growing waiting lists there are real concerns the current economic crisis will only make things worse as developers delay their regeneration plans.

People are beginning to ask why it has taken so long for progress on the Greenwich site.

Planned redevelopment on the site

Cllr Chris Roberts, of Greenwich Council, insists development of the Peninsula is on track, with many of the commercial properties ahead of schedule.

However, he did concede there is a concern at the rate of house building.

"For a planning application that was granted in 2004, well before the words credit and crunch came in the same sentence, there is a question mark over why some of the housing developers here haven't moved more quickly."

Delays to developments across the city

'Ground to a halt'

It is not just Greenwich, in Havering a new ice rink with 30 flats has been put on hold, whilst over in the Thames Gateway new housing schemes have reportedly ground to a halt.

For Olivia Powis, from the National Housing Federation, there could be a real shortage of homes in the future if nothing is done now.

"We really need to build more and more homes and in the current climate we need to look at different ways of doing that."

She continued: "Housing Associations need the assistance to buy land at cheaper levels too."

They want that assistance to come from the Government. But in the absence of any concrete promises, in the meantime the wait goes on for thousands of people like Jon.