Shortage of council flats in Lambeth lead to big waiting lists
The Student View is a charity that teaches young people from Archbishop Tenison’s C of E School how to spot misinformation and write real news stories about Lambeth to encourage them to engage with their communities. Here they write about the surge in the numbers of people applying for housing.
The waiting list for council homes in Lambeth has 8,469 more families on it than a decade ago, new data can reveal.
A total of 25,198 families were in the queue to be allocated social housing on April 1 last year, compared to 16,729 in 2009 and 13,050 in 1999.
To tackle this shortage, 91 council homes have been built in the borough in the past five years, 13 directly built by the council and 78 by private developers.
Cabinet member for housing, Cllr Paul Gadsby, says his team plan to build 1,000 new council homes in the next few years, with developments on small sites of disused land and a larger programme of estate redevelopment in the years ahead.
He said the longer waiting list in Lambeth is “similar to that in every major London borough and many councils across the country” due to local government budgets being cut back in a “very savage manner”.
Cllr Gadsby added: “In the past decade we have seen a regrettable situation where the government has not properly invested in council homes, or indeed genuinely affordable, house building programmes across the country.
“This has meant that while housing demand has been going up, house building for the kind of homes working people need has been declining. Despite this difficult situation, Lambeth has been building more homes as part of a programme that looks to use the limited resources we do have wisely.
“Until we get a government that is willing to properly invest in housing, we are likely to see long waiting lists for council homes continuing but we are committed to doing all we can to continue building more homes for people on real wages.”
The findings were sourced by media literacy charity The Student View in a Freedom of Information request submitted to Lambeth council.
Note: Cllr Jennifer Brathwaite is now Lambeth cabinet member for housing.
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