Today (Thursday 12 February), new Government data reveals a
worsening housing crisis in England, with more social homes being
sold or demolished than there are being built, acquired or
converted.
New figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local
Government show that in England there was a net loss of 3,834
homes for social rent – more than double the number lost in the
previous year.
16,291 social homes were either sold or demolished last year in
England, yet just 10,807 social homes were built.
Over the past three years we have seen*:
|
|
2024/25
|
2023/24
|
2022/23
|
|
Gains
|
17,602
|
19,834
|
19,754
|
|
Loss
|
-21,436
|
-21,521
|
-23,809
|
|
Net change
|
-3,834
|
-1,687
|
-4,055
|
Responding to the figures, Matt Downie, Chief Executive
at Crisis, said: “Behind today's figures are hundreds of
thousands of people facing the trauma and indignity of
homelessness because we are not building new social homes at
anywhere close to the scale required. This comes at a time when
record numbers of people are sleeping on the streets or trapped
in temporary accommodation with nowhere else to turn.
“On taking office, the Government promised to deliver a new
generation of social homes. We back them to the hilt on this
ambition but fear they are on course to fail unless urgent action
is taken.
“The best evidence shows that we need 90,000 social homes
delivered a year to turn the tide on rising homelessness – but
we're a far cry from that. In London, there have already been
moves to reduce affordable housebuilding targets, which we worry
will have a long-term impact on delivering social homes for
generations to come.
“Government must go further and faster, bringing forward promised
funding to boost the delivery of social homes and setting a
national minimum target on large scale housing developments to
focus minds. A ‘Britain Built For All' must provide enough safe,
secure homes for people on the lowest incomes.”
-Ends-
Notes to Editor
*MHCLG have recently revised their statistical releases on this
to provide their own figure on net change in social housing. This
differs to the method Crisis used for calculating net gain/loss
prior to these statistical bulletins being introduced, and
includes gains due to acquisitions, conversions and changes to
tenure, which were not included under our previous method, as
well as new builds. Due to the changes to the publications of the
statistics, we're not able to make comparisons going back further
than 2022/23.
