Lambeth concedes it must now send temporary homes families further afield

By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Reporter

Lambeth council has admitted it will need to source more temporary accommodation in cheaper places outside of the city to save cash.

The Labour-run authority’s new five-year homelessness strategy acknowledges ‘the need to source TA [temporary accommodation] in more affordable locations, including outside of London’.

The admission appears to be a departure from its policy, agreed in 2019, which stated the council’s approach was ‘focused on keeping people in the borough and London’.

The 2019 policy added: ‘Unlike some other boroughs, we don’t place many families outside of London.’

Earlier this month, it was revealed that 256 Lambeth families were living in temporary accommodation outside of London as of December 31 last year.

The data obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request showed the number of households placed in temporary housing outside of London has increased nine-fold in four years, from 29 in 2020 to 256 at the end of 2024.

Homeless families from Lambeth were living in Herefordshire (140 miles away), Walsall in the West Midlands (127 miles away), and Birmingham (121 miles away) as of December 31, 2024.

Councils are legally required to provide people who become homeless with temporary accommodation, while they search for a suitable permanent home. An acute shortage of cheap housing in London, coupled with a rise in people becoming homeless, means local authorities in London are placing more people outside of the city.

Lambeth council currently provides 4,800 homeless families with temporary accommodation—an increase of 50 per cent in the last two years. The council spends £100 million per year on housing families in temporary housing.

Lambeth council’s cabinet approved the Lambeth Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030 at a meeting on Monday evening.

Councillor Danny Adilypour, deputy leader, said the new strategy was a ‘people-centred approach’ that focused on ‘prevention, early intervention and partnership working’.

He added: “This strategy sets out four priorities: ensuring that there is suitable accommodation for homeless people to move into, ensuring that rough sleeping is prevented, and when it does occur, it is rare, brief and non-recurrent, working together with our partners to prevent homelessness and finally improving the quality of the data we have on our homeless residents.”