Councils struggling to build social housing
TENS OF thousands of families on ordinary incomes are being left languishing on council-house waiting lists as the region’s local authorities struggle to boost the stock of social rent homes.
Councils and housing associations in the region built or bought just 430 new social rent homes in 2016-17 despite 144,681 families sitting on waiting lists, Labour analysis of official figures shows.
At that rate it would take 336 years to meet the demand on waiting lists purely with extra social rent homes, which are available to rent by those on lower incomes. Some councils did not build or buy any new social rent houses at all.
Prime Minister Theresa May has made housing a key domestic issue for the Government and Ministers are working on a social housing strategy green paper.
Shadow Housing Minister and South Yorkshire MP John Healey said: “Deep Conservative cuts mean councils and housing associations across Yorkshire can’t build the affordable homes that families on ordinary incomes need. The truth is that what new homes we build, and who for, matters just as much as how many. But under the Tories, the number of new social rented homes has fallen to the lowest level since records began.”
The biggest gap between the number of new social rent homes and the size of the council house waiting list was in Bradford.
The city’s waiting list was 12,863-strong, while just 10 additional social rent homes were built or bought in 2016-17, meaning it would take 1,286 years to meet demand with new dwellings. The best performing area was Ryedale, with 40 new social rent homes and a waiting list of 634. There were no new social rent homes in Calderdale, Craven, Doncaster, Hambleton, Harrogate, Hull, Richmondshire, Scarborough, Selby or Sheffield, according to the analysis.
Some of these areas had large waiting lists, including Sheffield with 28,852 and Hull with 9,809.
A Government spokesman said it had built more than 357,000 new affordable properties but was “determined to do more”.