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Social housing lettings edge up for first time in six years
Social housing lettings edged up by 0.3% last year in the first increase for six years, government figures show.
Official statistics published today show that housing associations and councils let 313,964 social or affordable rented homes in 2018/19, up from 312,989 the previous year.
That represents an end to the sustained decline in lettings since 2013/14, when the figure stood at 396,471.
However, the number of households on local authority waiting lists rose 4% to 1.16 million as of 1 April 2019, up from 1.11 million a year earlier.
The number of new social housing lettings, which counts social rent homes and the more expensive affordable rent, has fallen 17.2% over the past 10 years, despite the stock increasing by 3% over that time.
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Housing charity Shelter claimed there are now nearly 60,000 fewer social rented homes in England than a decade ago due to demolitions and sell-offs.
Two-thirds of lettings in 2018/19 went to tenants who were not previously living in social housing, with 18% to statutorily homeless households.
Of those given a new social tenancy, 56% had been on the area’s waiting list for less than a year, and 55% were single adult households.
Supported housing lettings actually fell by 2.7%, from 85,967 to 83,686, while general needs lettings rose 1.4% from 227,022 to 230,278.
Most lettings – 272,830 – were for social rent homes, but this figure is only 24 homes higher than in 2017/18.
Affordable rent lettings climbed 1.4%, from 39,941 in 2017/18 to 40,495.
Rent to Buy only accounted for 0.2% of total lettings at 639 – however this represented a 164% increase for this product from 242 in 2017/18. Rent to Buy is a government scheme designed to ease the transition from renting to buying and sees tenants rent their homes for around 20% below the market rate for five years before being given the option to buy the home as a shared ownership property.
There are around four million social housing households in England.
Churn was significantly higher in the Midlands and the North, which the government suggested was down to the “widening affordability gap between the social and private rental sectors” in London and the South East, which discourages current social tenants from moving into private accommodation.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Too many people are spending years waiting for a social home that isn’t coming. The government has said now is the time to invest in the future – they must ensure a new generation of social homes is part of that future.”
