Analysis from London First and Grant Thornton UK LLP has found that although 54,941 homes were given planning permission in 2014, only 29,701 were under construction or completed by 2017.

Planning permission typically runs out after three years.

However, the report showed that the number of affordable homes has increased, with 14,372 receiving permission last year.

This represented 30% of all permissions and almost twice the number seen in 2010.

In total, 7,510 affordable homes were built in 2017, up from 2,379 in 2010.

Overall, there were nearly 80,000 planning applications in 2017 – a record number and up 14% on 2016.

Nonetheless, the number of homes given planning permission has fallen from 54,941 in 2014 to 48,024 in 2017.

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Ian Tasker, director of government and infrastructure advisory at Grant Thornton UK LLP, said: “We are still falling seriously short of the level of housebuilding needed to combat the ongoing housing crisis.

“Permission rates for applications in London have fallen for the fourth consecutive year, while the increase in completions has been marginal.

“Without dramatic change and more direct intervention to find out why we are failing to substantially increase this output, this target is not going to be achieved; we need to address this now.

“To stand a chance of effectively tackling this problem, we need to make better use of land and increase housing density; even London’s densest boroughs have low densities compared to cities such as Paris and Madrid.”