£205bn cost to build homes for every household on social housing waiting list in England, JLL says

So far, the Liberal Democrats have pledged to deliver 380,000 homes per year, including 150,000 for social rent.

The party said this target could be delivered through new garden cities, community-led developments and by expanding neighbourhood planning.

This followed the Conservatives’ commitment to deliver 1.6 million homes and renew the Affordable Homes Programme. However, there were just two mentions of social housing in the manifesto and no commitment on a figure for this tenure.

Manifestos for the Labour and Green Party are expected later today. For its part, Labour previously pledged to deliver 1.5 million homes, with the majority of grant funding going towards social rent.

While the Greens recently backed Inside Housing’s Build Social campaign, with an ambition of 90,000 a year over the next decade in England.

However, even if a 1.5 million-home target is achieved, JLL still forecasts a shortfall of 570,000 homes between 2024 and 2028.

The firm is also calling for the Right To Buy (RTB) to be scrapped in order to protect existing social housing stock. JLL highlighted how there were 11,303 RTB sales in England in 2022-23, up 11% from the five-year average of 10,138.

Data from the same period showed the number of homes lost through RTB sales was more than three times higher than the number of replacement homes completed.

Since the RTB scheme was first launched under then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, 1.9 million homes have been sold to tenants through the policy.

Since 2012, more than 110,000 homes have been sold under the policy and only 44,000 replaced. The Local Government Association estimated that a further 100,000 homes will be sold up to 2030, with only 43,000 replaced. 

Previous research by Inside Housing revealed that as of 2015, almost 40% of former council homes sold under RTB were rented out privately.

The government ended its two-year policy that allowed councils to keep 100% of their RTB receipts in March this year.

JLL’s research also highlighted the 1.287 million households on social housing waiting lists, according to the latest government data, which represents a 14% rise over the last five years.  

One in every 20 households in England are currently on the list, rising to almost one in 10 in London. At the same time, temporary accommodation currently costs local councils at least £1.74bn a year, with the number of households in temporary accommodation rising 89% over the past decade.

Marcus Dixon, director of UK residential research at JLL, said: “Pressure on social housing waiting lists in England has been building for some time and we have reached crisis point.

“Overall development has been slow in the past few years and has fallen short of targets, heaping more pressure on waiting lists.

“As a first step to easing the pressure on waiting lists, the next government needs to scrap Right to Buy, which has seen thousands of social homes being removed every year.

“Additionally, political parties need to be honest about the barriers preventing large scale housebuilding and set realistic development targets. Without doing so, voters will be trapped in a cycle of disappointment when the government of the day fails to deliver on its promises.”

JLL’s analysis is the latest in a number of pieces of research published since the general election was announced that have highlighted both the scale of the housing crisis and the value of social housing.

Earlier this week, the G15 group of London’s largest landlords published a report on how the capital’s social homes contribute almost £6.9bn to the UK economy every year.