ROOF Blog

One in four English local authorities would take more than 10 years to house everyone on their council housing waiting list, it was revealed today.

Shelter says a total of 82 authorities would take between a decade and 33 years to clear their waiting lists, or until 2019 to 2042.

With the national waiting list reaching almost 1.8 million households, but only just over 270,000 homes let nationally last year, the average time for all councils to end their lists would be almost seven years.

Of the 355 local authorities, Barnet, in North West London, would take the longest to house everyone on its waiting list at more than 33 years, followed by Redbridge in East London at more than 32 years, and Brent on 25 years.

Shelter has blamed the severe shortage of affordable homes, and has called on political parties to make housing a top election priority.

The government is to offer cash rewards of up to £500 to people who report neighbours they suspect are unlawfully subletting their council home.

Ministers have been told that between 50,000 and 200,000 social rented homes in England are occupied by unauthorised tenants, at a time when waiting lists are full and housing projects have stalled.

They are expected to target 8,000 tenancy cheats in a first wave of investigations this week across 145 local authorities after a trawl of council records by the Audit Commission.

There is a growing crisis as demand for social housing has soared during the recession.

About 1.8m households are on waiting lists in England, while just 60,000 social homes have been built in the past two years.

John Healey, the housing minister, said: ‘We can’t allow cheats to hang on to the tenancies of council houses they don’t need and don’t live in.’

The crackdown will be difficult for subletters, who have no rights or protection if a social home is reclaimed, and who can be evicted in as few as seven days.

Demand to build council homes is far exceeding government expectations, putting pressure on the Treasury to release extra cash as part of the spending review next month.

The pressure amounts to an end to the 20-year effective moratorium on council house building, amid a new cross-party consensus to build council homes.

Nearly 90 local authorities, including large Conservative ones such as Birmingham, have bid to build a further 3,500 council homes as soon as possible.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) had planned and budgeted for a demand to build 1,200 homes.

The bids come on top of 49 councils that were given the go-ahead by CLG in the summer to build 2,200 homes on the condition that they were on site by March next year.

The unexpectedly large number of local authorities bidding in the second round represents the largest potential council house building programme in more than two decades.

The number of council and housing association homes for rent is at its lowest in 50 years, a Shelter Scotland report has found. Building pressure warns of a ‘growing chasm between the number of homes needed and the number available’. It estimated there were 142,000 households on the waiting list for council homes, and said the right-to-buy scheme was partly to blame for the shortage as more than 135,000 homes had been sold under the scheme in the previous decade.

For the first time in nearly 20 years English local councils are to begin constructing homes, following last week’s announcement by John Healey allowing town halls to retain rent from council housing and receipts from the right-to-buy scheme. Analysts predict that nearly 140,000 homes will be built in the next decade, as local authorities start applying for £350 million in direct funding made available from the government. Birmingham is planning to build 500 council houses a year within three years to become the biggest council house builder in England.

The Conservatives have warned that equality legislation could stop government plans to give local people greater priority for council housing. Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said the measures would be illegal and questioned if funding for the £1.5 billion cost of the programme would be diverted from the Decent Homes initiative, which aims to take every council and social property in the country to a decent standard. The government has denied this.

Details of Gordon Brown’s plan to boost social housing were revealed in the House of Commons yesterday. He announced he would pump £2.1 billion into building affordable housing, including an extra 20,000 homes to be built in the next two years on top of the 90,000 already in the pipeline. He said he would triple the £600 million announced in the Budget to cover new council and housing association homes – with half the extra £1.5 billion coming from the Communities and Local Government budget and the other half redirected from other government departments including transport, health and schools.

John Healey is expected to announce details of a consultation to allow councils to keep the proceeds of council house sales and the revenue from rent, after revealing last night that he would ‘dismantle’ the current council housing finance system. Under the current system the money is returned to the Treasury where it is reallocated to local authorities based on housing need.

A two-year investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Local Government Association, whose conclusions will be released next week, has found that immigrants were not jumping to the front of queues for public services, although the belief was widespread. The majority of new migrants (60 per cent) tended to end up in private rented accommodation because they were not eligible for council accommodation, another 18 per cent bought their own home and only 11 per cent were in council properties, compared with 17 per cent among the general population.

Gordon Brown is expected to announce a proposal that will require councils to take account of applicants’ connections to the area when allocating homes, as part of a multi-million pound plan to build more affordable homes. The prime minister hopes the move will increase stock in both council housing and affordable private homes in the coming two years, while creating thousands of new jobs in the process. Funds will be made available to the HomeBuy Direct scheme which helps first-time buyers into the market, while councils will be given discretion to provide social housing to local people even if they are not considered priority cases.