Green party-controlled councils have joined a high court legal challenge led by the Aspire party to stop London mayor Sadiq Khan slashing affordable housing in the city.

Hackney and Lewisham councils, which Zack Polanski’s party took control of following the 7 May elections, have joined the Aspire-run Tower Hamlets council in its bid to stop Khan from cutting the city’s affordable housing quota from 35% to 20%.

Lambeth, Southwark, Waltham Forest and Haringey councils are formally supporting the judicial review claim, which has been served on the Greater London Authority.

Khan said in 2016 that more than 50% of new homes in London should be affordable, but later the same year allowed private developers to limit affordable housing in new developments to 35%.

His plan to further reduce the quota comes amid an escalating housing crisis in the city, where the cost of rent is a major driver of poverty and child homelessness.

More than a million Londoners are living in homes that are either overcrowded or unfit for habitation because of pests, damp and mould. Some 90,000 children are homeless and living in temporary accommodation in the city, according to estimates from London Councils.

Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets, wrote to Khan in early May to inform him of the legal challenge. Hackney mayor Zoë Garbett and Lewisham mayor Liam Shrivastava joined the legal challenge after they won their elections on 7 May.

“It is a scandal to cut the affordable housing quota when the need for genuinely affordable homes has never been greater,” Rahman said. “Our city is increasingly being turned into an investment asset for the super rich rather than a place where ordinary Londoners can afford to live, work and raise a family.”

Garbett said: “The mayor of London is no longer surrounded by councils willing to sign off any developer-driven decision he wants to make.”

Shrivastava added: “While we understand the challenge the mayor of London faces in terms of a stalled house building market and a developer-led model that is broken, he has provided no justification for these changes, which will undoubtedly reduce the number of affordable homes built in London.”

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