The number of people on social housing waiting lists has increased by more than 150% over the past decade in some London boroughs, amid an investigation into how local councils allocate their housing stock.
The London Assembly Housing Committee is seeking to understand variations in social housing allocation policies, and whether they are applied fairly and make best use of current supply.
Chair Zoë Garbett said the committee chose to examine allocation policies following discussions about the pressure that the temporary accommodation crisis is placing on Londoners and their families.
One social housing tenant in Kensington & Chelsea, who did not want to be identified in case it harmed their application, said they had been trying to secure a move for over eight years but had faced an ‘iron wall of bureaucracy’.
The transfer was requested in 2016, after their two young children, now teenagers, moved into their current one-bedroom flat.
The tenant said: “My children’s education has been ruined. They can’t study in a studio apartment, they can’t invite friends, and they are not performing well in school.”
Data released by the housing department shows that the number of households on waiting lists has more than doubled in some London local authorities, as well as highlighting major discrepancies in waiting lists across boroughs.
In October 2024, east London had a higher combined waiting list than the rest of the city put together.
Newham (38,417), Lambeth (38,131) and Brent (33,263) were the local authorities with the highest waiting lists, with each seeing the amount waiting to be housed more than doubling in a decade.
The number of households on the Lambeth waiting list, for example, has jumped from 15,264 in 2014 to 38,131 in 2024 – an increase of almost 150%.
In London, each local authority sets its own policy for allocating housing, either using a points-based or banding system, taking into account factors like serious medical conditions, homelessness, family size, and housing disrepair.
As such, one issue the committee is investigating is the extent to which variations in allocation policies are responsible for major discrepancies between boroughs.
Explaining the thinking behind council allocation policies, Wandsworth Council cabinet member for housing Aydin Dikerdem, said: “The aim is to try and prioritise those in the most acute need, whilst also balancing the fairness of the time someone that has been waiting.”
He added that people with major disrepair cases, with young children, and those with very serious medical needs were likely to be awarded higher points and therefore be placed in a higher priority band.
Initial evidence hearings focused on the barriers faced by applicants in accessing social housing, with a particular focus on disabled residents and Black applicants, in light of a recent report by Shelter on racial discrimination in the social housing sector.
Regarding the complexities of the bidding system, Kwajo Tweneboa, a prominent social housing activist and writer, told the committee: “Tenants bid for years with no feedback, no transparency, no accountability. It’s not a system, it’s a black hole.”
More widely, data also highlights the scale of London’s housing crisis relative to the rest of England.
The number of households on waiting lists in the capital has risen by more than 100,000 since 2016 and now constitutes more than a quarter of the total amount.
Behind these statistics lie hundreds of thousands of Londoners desperate to find safe housing that will provide stability for them and their children, such as the tenant from Kensington & Chelsea.
Yet research from the National Housing Federation suggests that the waitlist for a family-sized social home in London would currently take 27 years to clear on average – rising to more than a century in some boroughs.
While Dikerdem said he was interested to see the outcome of the committee’s investigation, he cautioned that the debate around allocation policies risked ‘dancing around the fundamental question’ of building more affordable and social homes.
Dikerdem leads the Homes for Wandsworth programme, a council-led development scheme which has so far built 500 new council homes in the borough, with 500 more in the pipeline.
The 1980 Housing Act enabled council tenants to buy their homes, many of which were later sold back on the private rental market.
Data from London Councils suggests that more than 316,000 London council homes have been sold since the legislation was introduced, while a report from the Centre for London notes that 40% of social homes sold through the scheme are now private rentals.
In 1979, 31% of the total number of homes rented in England were social homes. Now, according to the House of Commons library, the number is roughly 16%.
This dramatic fall in the number of council homes comes alongside an affordability crisis in London’s private rental sector, where prices have risen 83% since 2010.
Speaking in her capacity as Green assembly member, Zoë Garbett said she saw soaring rents as one of the main factors for waiting list numbers going up.
Concerns about affordability and the declining number of council homes have not yet been met with a successful drive to build new social and affordable housing – despite the government’s pledge to build 1.5million new homes by the end of the parliament.
In October, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Housing Secretary Steve Reed reduced the quota of affordable homes that developers must build in order for their applications to be fast-tracked, from 35% to 20%.
Cllr Dikerdem said he thought the move was a mistake, while Suzanne Muna, secretary and co-founder of national campaign group Social Housing Action Campaign (SHAC), said the mayor’s housing strategy had been ‘woeful’.
She said: “All they’ve done is twice cut social housing targets for the new development projects. You get a whole load of new developments, but don’t actually alleviate the problem.”
Garbett added: “The Mayor has just listened more to developers – I feel like the solutions being presented are the same ones that have got us into this crisis.
“The government says they really want to solve this crisis, but they’re not bringing in rent controls, they’re not stopping Right to Buy, they’re not assessing all the things that we know that work.”
These various strands of London’s housing crisis have reached their apotheosis in the unprecedented numbers of people currently placed in temporary accommodation.
Currently, more than 164,000 children live in temporary housing across England, with the number of households with children increasing by 15.7% from September 2023.
According to data from London councils, local authorities are now spending £5.5 million a day on homelessness, with the bulk of that money used for temporary accommodation for families they have a statutory duty to house.
Diderkim said the temporary accommodation crisis is key to understanding why waiting lists are so high, as well as the issues councils face allocating their limited social housing stock.
He said: “Someone who is currently housed in precarious private rental accommodation on a low income, who is trying to get access to social housing, they are in some senses competing with an almost never-ending supply of constant homelessness cases.”
Going forwards, Dikerdem says he is concerned that if current trends continue, social housing will increasingly be seen as a fallback option for the most vulnerable people in society.
He added: “That becomes a self-fulfilling cycle whereby it can be used to undermine social housing as a place where there’s genuine diversity of communities. You’ve got key workers living on the same blocks. You’ve got people from all walks of life.
“I get really worried about the crisis exacerbating the idea that only those in the most need should get access to social housing. But obviously in the reality of the situation that we’re under, that is how we have to operate.”
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “The Mayor has made building new social and council homes a top priority. Under Sadiq, we have seen more new council home starts in London than at any time since the 1970s and, prior to the pandemic, more new homes completed in London than any time since the 1930s.
“The impact of the pandemic, Brexit and the failures of the previous government have created a perfect storm for housebuilding in the capital.
“But the Mayor is not willing to stand by while the supply of affordable housing for Londoners dries up. That’s why he has worked with the government on a time-limited package of bold measures to deliver more homes across the capital.
“Sadiq welcomes the Assembly Housing Committee’s investigation into the allocation of social housing in London and will carefully consider its recommendations. “The Mayor will always do everything he can to accelerate the delivery of social housing we continue to build a better, fairer London for everyone.”
Featured image credit: Pedro Ramos, Unsplash
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