17 years to fix council housing waiting lists, survey claims

It would take an average of 17 years to re-house everyone currently on a waiting list for council housing around the country, according to a new survey.

The survey by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) shows that on average, there were over 1.2 million households on council waiting lists nationally between 2013 and 2018.

However, over the same period, the number of council-owned homes fell by around 84,000.

Based on current projects trends CIPFA estimates that it could take anything up to 17 years to re-house households on the waiting list nationally.

The report highlights regional variations in waiting lists and estimates that residents in the North West of England can expect to wait an average of 39 years for council housing because of pressures on supply.

This is compared to an average waiting time in the East and West Midlands of between 8 – 10 years.

According to CIPFA, the North East has seen the highest loss of council-owned social housing stock, with a nearly 19% reduction in council homes since 2013, with the North West having lost just over 12% of its stock over the same period. Other regions have experienced smaller losses, ranging from just over 1% in the South East to just over 6% in the South West.

To accompany the report, CIPFA has also launched a housing analytics tool – Housing 360 – which is a suite of new tools from CIPFA that pool an extensive range of housing data, allowing both historic and predictive analysis, to support local authorities in addressing and meeting local housing needs and better understanding their housing resilience.

‘The extent of the UK’s housing crisis has been a known issue for quite some time, with government targets in place to build 300,000 new homes per year,’ said CIPFA chief executive, Rob Whiteman.

‘However, with many developers putting projects on hold as a result of the ongoing pandemic, this ambition will become increasingly more difficult to realise.

‘CIPFA’s new Housing 360 toolkit provides councils with both the reflective and predictive data models needed to plan for the medium to long-term as the full impact of coronavirus on the sector becomes apparent,’ added Mr Whiteman.

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