London households on social housing waiting list at 10 year high

The number of households on waiting lists for social housing in London last year hit the highest level for more than a decade, according to newly published data.

A total of 336,366 households were waiting for a council or housing association home as of 1 April 2024.

The figure for that same April date has risen every year since 2018, and is now at its highest since 2013, when 344,294 households were waiting on lists across the capital’s boroughs.

The data helps to outline the scale of the housing crisis facing the Labour Government, which has promised to create 1.5 million new homes by 2029.

Social housing includes both council homes and housing association properties. Rents are linked with local incomes and councils prioritise applications based on who needs a home most urgently.

Almost a quarter (23 per cent) of the households on London’s total list were waiting for a home in either Newham or Lambeth.

Newham had the capital’s largest list, with 38,417 households, closely followed by Lambeth with 38,131. The smallest list was found in the City of London, with 1,072 households, followed by the borough of Bexley, with 1,479.

In Camden the figure was 8,028, and in Westminster it was 5,232. However, Camden had removed more than 20,000 from its list in 2015 reducing the number waiting from 24,644 to 2,930 a year later.

“London is grappling with the most severe housing and homelessness crisis in the country,” said Grace Williams, executive member for housing at London Councils – the capital’s local government association. “The capital is becoming increasingly unaffordable and, as these numbers demonstrate, there is a desperate need for more social housing.

“Boroughs are doing everything we can to build the affordable homes our communities are crying out for. However, we are also struggling with enormous resource constraints and immense challenges to housing delivery in London.”

Despite only making up about 16 percent of England’s population, Greater London accounted for 25 percent of the country’s households waiting for a social home.

The region with the second-largest collective list was North West England — which contains both Manchester and Liverpool — with 207,173 households waiting for a home. The North East – which includes Newcastle and is the least populated of England’s regions – had the smallest list, at 68,183.

Ms Williams, who is also leader of Labour-run Waltham Forest Council, added: “Boroughs are determined to turn the situation around. We are strongly pro-housing growth and as committed as ever to working with the government to turbocharge housebuilding in the capital. We are also working to ensure we have the resources needed to cope with the immediate homelessness pressures we are facing.

“Despite the desperate need to improve housing conditions and build new homes in the capital, London Councils’ analysis suggests boroughs have been left with a black hole in their social housing finances of £700m over the period 2023-24 and 2027-28. This effective reduction in resources is due to the combination of fast-rising costs and the previous government’s cap on social rent levels.

“Boroughs are urging more financial support for the social housing sector, including future social rents to be set at levels that sustain boroughs’ social housing budgets and enable more investment in new social homes.”

Responding to the data, a spokeswoman at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “These figures are unacceptable. We are taking urgent action to change this as part of our Plan for Change, building 1.5 million homes this Parliament and delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.

“Local government has suffered from years of short-term decisions, so we have already set out important steps to help them deliver the homes we need, including overdue reforms to the Right to Buy scheme and an extra £500mn for the Affordable Homes Programme. We will set out further measures in due course.”

Data: Households on Local Authority Waiting List, by London Borough and English regions.

Additional reporting by Linus Rees.

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