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Council with UK’s worst housing crisis to consult on new allocations policy with overcrowding focus
An east London borough with the UK’s most severe housing crisis is set to overhaul its allocations policy with an increased focus on alleviating severe overcrowding.
Newham Council said that its current system “de facto prioritises those in employment” and that it wants to move to an approach putting “those in highest need” first.
Cabinet members are expected to agree to consult with residents and other stakeholders on a proposed new policy for deciding which households are given social housing at a meeting next week.
An officer’s report prepared for the meeting said Newham’s current waiting list eligibility criteria are “relatively open” compared with neighbouring boroughs such as Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge.
Anyone over the age of 18 who has lived in the area for two years or has family or employment in Newham can join the list, including those with no defined housing need.
Under the revised policy being proposed, criteria will be tightened to increase the residence requirement to three years in most cases. Those with ‘no housing need’ will also be prevented from accruing waiting time.
The planned approach will remove the bidding advantage for waiting list households in employment, putting all those identified as having a housing need in the same category regardless of whether they are in work. They will then be sorted in order of waiting time.
The current allocations policy, devised in 2012, was designed “to both incentivise people to access work and to reward those who do so”, the officer’s report said.
But the worsening housing crisis and the economic fall-out from COVID-19 means this approach now risks “putting those in the most precarious financial position at a disadvantage”, it added.
Around 80% of households identified as having a housing need, and who have successfully bid for a council home over the past five years, have been in employment.
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A new category will also be created to give extra priority to households facing severe overcrowding – defined as having two fewer bedrooms than they require – plus another form of housing need.
The “overwhelming majority” of this group have been in the borough for more than 10 years but most are not in work so would be unlikely to get a council home under the existing policy, the report said.
Housing overcrowding, which is more prevalent in Newham than anywhere else in England, is often associated with health problems and has been identified by the council as a key factor in it being particularly badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Newham has the second-highest death rate in the country, and the council’s cabinet member for housing, John Gray, previously branded the novel coronavirus “a housing disease”.
There are currently 4,500 households in temporary accommodation placed by Newham Council – the highest in the country – and the authority expects its spending in this area to total almost £100m for 2020/21.
It has 27,635 households on its housing waiting list – the highest of any London council – with an average wait time for those with ‘reasonable preference’ need status of 13 years.
Some 7,900 households are expected to be cut from the list under the proposed new allocations system because of changes to the eligibility criteria – none of which are currently likely to get a council home within 10 years.
The consultation will run for 12 weeks, and Newham’s cabinet will subsequently be asked to approve a detailed new allocations policy. Final changes are expected to be agreed in early 2021.
Next week’s meeting will also see cabinet members asked to approve a consultation with residents on a new draft housing delivery strategy for the borough, focused on delivering more affordable homes, improving private rented housing, addressing homelessness, and tackling fuel poverty as well as the revised allocations policy.
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