Crawley Borough Council calls on government to address housing emergency

Councillor Michael Jones and Councillor Ian Irvine, Cabinet Member for Housing, have written to Secretaries of State and Ministers at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; the Department for Work and Pensions; the Home Office; the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; the Cabinet Office and the Treasury to request urgent help.

Crawley Borough Council declared a housing emergency at its meeting in February due to unprecedented temporary accommodation demands facing the town. Councillors unanimously requested that a letter be written to Ministers to voice their increasing concerns at the scale of the predicament facing the borough, as well as many other areas across the country.

The level of demand is outstripping the supply of available units, both in terms of temporary accommodation, but also more permanent accommodation. Those in real housing need are having to be placed in accommodation that may not meet their needs, may not even be in the borough and may be for long periods of time.

This is not a temporary situation – the prospects are for current trends to continue or worsen.

By declaring a housing emergency, the council is drawing attention to the situation and seeking greater support and action from government who hold many of the key levers needed to address the crisis.

Crawley is one of the worst affected areas in the country. A number of factors are driving increasingly unsustainable temporary accommodation costs, which have risen from £262,000 in 2018 to 2019 to £5.7 million in 2023 to 2024 – a 20-fold increase and a figure which now accounts for one pound in every three of the council's budget. At the current rate of growth, this will become half of the council’s net-revenue expenditure in just 18 months' time.

Councillor Jones said: “The financial impact upon the Council has been substantial. As an authority we have made good financial management decisions through the years to allow us to navigate the financial challenges faced by all local authorities. The costs of temporary and emergency accommodation are putting our financial sustainability at acute risk.”

Other factors include:

· the unaffordability of home ownership for an increasing number of people

· a shrinking private rented sector with soaring rents (eight per cent increase in the last year) that makes this housing unaffordable for a growing number of people

· the shortage of council and other housing to meet demand

· water neutrality planning restrictions imposed by Natural England either slowing down or preventing new development

· the presence of four asylum contingency hotels in the town and the decision of the Home Office to disperse those seeking asylum directly into communities without a managed process or proper support in place

This has resulted in:

· 2,796 applications made for the 243 housing units made available in the last eight months – more than 11 applicants per property

· 493 households, or more than 1,200 people, living in temporary accommodation

This is despite the council’s efforts to tackle these pressures including:

· one of the best records in the country developing social housing, delivering over 1,600 affordable homes over the past 10 years, and continuing to bring new sites forward

· buying additional properties for temporary accommodation such as the recent acquisition of 6-9 Ifield Road and pursuing long leasing opportunities to increase supply and reduce costs

· retrofitting thousands of council homes with water saving devices, allowing the council to build more homes

· bidding for funding streams from multiple sources to support new affordable housing and temporary accommodation

· using more than £500,000 of funding over the past two years to support people to stay in their accommodation and prevent them from becoming homeless

Councillor Jones added: “The underlying drivers of this housing crisis are not in the council's control. They sit with Central Government and require a coordinated government response, which is why we’ve written to the government with four requests following the council formally declaring a housing emergency in Crawley.

“We need the government to listen and act on this. The failure to pay heed to the concerns of almost the whole sector of local government on temporary accommodation in the Spring Budget puts the future of councils at serious risk, with all the damaging effects on services and our communities that will entail.”