Ashfield families being forced to wait years to find a suitable social home

The growing wait times for a three-bedroom social home have been called a ‘national scandal’, with the national waiting list increasing by over a third in a decade.

New data compiled by the National Housing Federation, Crisis and Shelter shows the average wait for a three-bed social home in Ashfield is now 5.9 years.

The figures were generated from the average annual wait time from 2021-22 to 2023-24.

They assume no new additions to the waiting list and are calculated on how many years it would take to clear the backlog at the average rate of lettings.

Matt Downie, chief executive of homelessness charity Crisis, said: "It’s ludicrous that in some areas of the country the wait for a social home is more than average life expectancy.

"Government must commit to building social housing at scale and provide the necessary investment so that we can create a stronger society where everyone has the foundation of a safe home.”

The number of families on waiting lists in England has increased by 37 per cent since 2015, six times the rate of the waiting list overall.

The groups behind the study say waiting lists have been increasing due to a ‘chronic shortage of social homes’.

Mairi MacRae, director of policy and campaigns at Shelter, said failure to build social homes has left more than 164,000 children ‘spending their formative years in damaging and often dangerous temporary accommodation’.

She added: "Childhoods are being lost to homelessness and it’s costing the country billions.”

According to the latest Government figures, a record 164,040 children are homeless and stuck in damaging temporary accommodation – double the number in 2012, with one in every six children living in an overcrowded home.

Meanwhile, low-income families living in the private rented sector are spending an average of 59 per cent of their income on housing costs.

According to the new analysis, Ashfield is ranked joint 145th longest out of 290 local authority areas in England for waiting times for these homes.

It was also ranked 12th of 35 areas in the East Midlands.

The aggregate for England was 7.8 years.

The three housing and homelessness organisations behind the study urged the Government to announce more financial support for the sector, including a new larger Affordable Homes Programme.

Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said: "The social housing sector has faced years of withdrawal of vital funding.

"The upcoming Spending Review is the opportunity for the Government to rebuild the capacity of the social housing sector and commit the investment and the change that is needed, creating a better future for our children and ending homelessness for good."

A Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "The findings of this report highlight the scale and devastating impact of the social housing crisis we’ve inherited.

"We’re taking urgent action to fix this through our Plan for Change, injecting £2bn to help deliver the biggest boost in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation, investing in homelessness services, and bringing forward overdue reforms to the Right to Buy scheme that will protect the stock of existing social housing."