On Thursday this week, Crawley Town Hall will be hosting a hearing of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Council Housing as part of their investigation into building the case to national Government.

We are increasingly seeing locally that the housing market is broken. Despite Crawley Borough Council having an enviable record on recent Council house building, the restrictions on us are too much to meet the growing need to the levels required.

A Shelter study has shown homelessness levels in Crawley are the third highest in the south-east at 1 in every 111 people.

In December 2023 nearly 2,400 households were on the Council’s housing register, 900 in priority bandings. The Council was actively working with 750+ households to prevent them entering temporary accommodation. But 476 households were in Temporary Accommodation. Of these 282 were in nightly paid accommodation with 96 placed out of the borough because of a lack of local supply.

Average house prices to buy or rent versus averages wages are becoming increasingly unaffordable.  This has seen a dramatic increase is demand for temporary housing.

The Council is currently spending nearly £5m net annually on temporary accommodation to keep people off the streets. This is equivalent to a third of its net revenue spending, so I hope people reading remember this next time someone tries to say we’re not doing anything about homelessness, nothing could be less true.

But these levels are unsustainable, and even at current levels unaffordable, over the medium term. Depressingly, the trends indicate these numbers will increase.

The only way to break this cycle is to increase the supply of Council housing. Unfortunately Government policy over many years has undermined this supply without allowing its replacement.

I believe that the quickest and best value way to get local people out of the housing crisis currently facing too many is through an extensive programme of Council housing.  As a starting point Council housing needs to be put on a level playing field financially, and in so doing ensure that supply can increase. This week we will be making that case to our Parliamentary representatives.

Cllr Michael Jones

Leader, Crawley Borough Council