New Ashfield social housing lettings fell by more than a third in last decade

Across England, access to affordable rental properties has steadily declined, with the number of households provided with new social lettings each year falling from 396,000 in 2011-12 to 267,000 last year.

Housing charity Shelter said the only way to solve the housing crisis is to “invest in a new generation of good quality and sustainable social homes”.

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities figures show there were 546 new social housing lettings offered to tenants in Ashfield in 2021-22, up from 458 the year before.

Despite the recent increase, 980 new lets were offered in 2011-12, well above the current figure.

This covers all social housing, which is split into affordable or intermediate rent, and social rent. The former means a tenant pays 80 per cent of market value, while the latter is set by the Government, is paid to registered providers and local authorities and is significantly lower than the private market.

The figures also show 1.2 million households were on local authority waiting lists at the end of March 2022.

Polly Neate, Shelter chief executive, said: “There is only one lasting solution to the housing emergency, and that is to invest in a new generation of good quality and sustainable social homes.”

Nationally, the number of new properties let as solely social rents – the more affordable social housing category, and roughly equal to 50 per cent of market value – has declined significantly over the last decade.

There were just 225,000 in 2021-22, down from 391,000 in 2011-12.

In Ashfield, 530, 97 per cent, of the new social housing lettings were among the most affordable category,down from 980 10 years ago.

Luke Murphy, associate director at the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, said: “The long-term decline in the share of new lettings in council homes also reflects the ongoing shrinkage of the number of local authority-owned social homes. All this points to the failure to build sufficient homes to meet demand, including genuinely affordable homes.”

The DLUHC said it is investing £11.5 billion into building more social homes to deliver tens of thousands of homes available for rent and sale through its Affordable Homes Programme.