Council backs plans to buy homes to ease temporary accommodation shortage

It follows a similar report last week by Hackney Council, which is looking to lease 300 properties from a newly established real estate investment trust (REIT) to boost its portfolio of temporary accommodation.

In Redbridge, the council pointed out that it had been “outbid” on local properties by the Home Office, which was placing refugees arriving in the UK in the borough.

In its report, the council said it had “several options available and will need to exercise all of these options to move at sufficient pace to tackle the issue in supply and ultimately bring the cost of temporary accommodation down”.

This will include acquiring existing stock and new developments – and in a similar move to Hackney, Redbridge has been “presented with several land and development opportunities across the borough involving developers partnering with household name institutional pension funds and high street banks”.

The council report added: “The leasing model has now become a vitally important option for many local landowners in the Redbridge market.”

Redbridge Council did not respond to a request for further comment, and has not yet set aside a figure for funding the plans.

London boroughs are having to take these decisions as spending on temporary accommodation grew by almost 40% last year, to reach £90m a month, the latest data has revealed.

In June last year, a High Court judge has ruled that Redbridge had acted unlawfully in its handling of a housing needs assessment and its failure to offer a mother of three accommodation in the borough.

The judicial review brought against the council by the mother, named only as UO, succeeded on all four grounds after hearings in March and April 2023.

Redbridge Council in part blamed “chronic government underinvestment in social housing” for the multiple failures.