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Social housing waiting list could reach two million people and take more than two decades to clear, JLL says
The number of people on the social housing waiting list in England could top two million by 2034 and take more than two decades to clear, experts have said.
Research by property agency JLL found that at current building rates, it will take 21 years to clear England’s current housing waiting list, assuming no one else was added.
But with demand increasing, waiting lists are likely to surge without a significant rise in affordable housebuilding.
In the year to 31 March 2024, there were 1.33 million households on local authority housing registers, according to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
This is the highest figure since 2014 and an increase of 43,000, or 3%, compared with March 2023.
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While 62,000 affordable homes were completed during the 2023-24 financial year, this was not enough to overcome the growth in demand. England needed to build 105,000 affordable homes just to address the annual increase in the waiting list.
Demolitions and sales of social homes also eat into new supply. The figures for 2023-24 are yet to be released, but the previous year saw 3,200 homes lost to demolitions and 11,000 to Right to Buy.
The government has proposed reforming Right to Buy rules to reduce the social housing selloff. JLL said these changes will mean “this becomes less significant an issue going forward”.
Every region saw an increase in the number of people on the social housing register in 2023-24, except for the East of England.
Due to London’s relative population size, annualised percentage changes are not as pronounced as in the North, but the scale of delivery needed is much greater.
In the past three years, 40,268 affordable homes were delivered in the capital, more than every other region, while the waiting list increased by 40,044.
Despite the government lowering London’s housing targets, housebuilding of all tenures would need to more than double (+114%) to meet need.
Marcus Dixon, director of UK residential research at JLL, said: “The 43,000 increase in the number of households on the social housing waiting list is a stark reminder that while government housing targets remain ambitious, we must find a way to deliver more affordable homes at scale.
“Just to hold waiting list numbers steady, we’d have needed to have seen almost 70% more affordable homes delivered in the last 12-month period.”
He added: “Delivery of additional affordable homes has hovered around 60,000 units per annum for a few years now. It is abundantly clear that the current approach to delivery and funding isn’t sufficient to address the undersupply.
“If we expect house builders to build the majority of these affordable homes, we need to ensure that there is a market for completed units (through more partnerships and better communication around Section 106) as well as sufficient occupier demand cross-tenure.”
An MHCLG spokesperson said: “These figures are unacceptable. We are taking urgent action to address this through our Plan for Change, building 1.5 million homes this parliament and delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.
“Local government has suffered from years of short-term decisions, so we have already set out important steps to help them deliver the homes we need, including overdue reforms to the Right to Buy scheme and an extra £500m for the Affordable Homes Programme. We will set out further measures in due course.”
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