England faces over a century wait for social housing at current build rates, according to research by the housing charity Shelter. The analysis found that more than 1.3 million households are on the waiting list for a social home, yet only 12,198 such homes were built by councils, housing associations or private developers across England last year. This works out at an average of 110 households waiting for every new social home delivered, meaning it would take 119 years to clear the backlog if building continued at the same pace.
The figures lay bare the scale of the crisis. The number of new social rent homes built annually has fallen by 64% over the last 15 years, while the number of homeless households in temporary accommodation has surged by 155%. In one in five council areas across England, not a single social home was built in the last two years, and in three in ten areas fewer than ten were built. At the historical peak of social home delivery, in 1967, 46% of all new homes built in England were for social rent, with councils providing almost all of them (97%). By 2023, council housing accounted for just 6% of the total housing stock.
The decline has accelerated to the point where England is now losing social homes faster than it builds them. In the financial year 2024/25, there was a net loss of 3,834 social rent homes: 16,291 were sold or demolished, while only 10,807 were built, acquired or converted. This net loss has occurred nearly every year since 1981. The Right to Buy scheme, introduced in 1980, has been a primary driver: more than two million social homes have been sold under the policy since its inception, and only 2% of those have been replaced. In the last decade alone, a net loss of 260,000 social rent homes has resulted, overwhelmingly due to Right to Buy sales. In 2024/25, 21,436 social homes were lost, mainly through such sales and demolitions.
The consequences for homelessness are stark. As of September 2025, a record 134,760 households were living in temporary accommodation, a 7% increase on the previous year, including 172,420 children. In the 2024/25 financial year, 330,410 households were assessed as homeless or at risk and owed a duty of support by their local council, a 0.9% rise. An estimated 8,010 people were sleeping rough in England in December 2025, a 7% increase year on year.
The £29bn debt barrier
Shelter argues that local authorities are paralysed in their ability to build social homes by a £29bn housing debt that was transferred to them by the central government in 2012 as part of a council house financing agreement. Servicing the interest on this debt is crippling councils and forcing them to sell off more homes through heavily discounted Right to Buy sales than they can afford to replace, the charity said. Councils argue that increased Right to Buy discounts and restrictions on social rent rates have rendered the debt unsustainable. Shelter and a coalition of councils are now calling for the debt to be forgiven or reduced.
Sarah Elliott, chief executive of Shelter, said: “It is absurd councils cannot build the homes we need because of a housing debt that was passed on to them by the government, which it has made almost impossible to pay off.” She warned that if the government “continued to deliver social homes at a snail’s pace then none of us alive today will live to see the end of the housing emergency. Unless the scarcity of new social homes is addressed, communities will continue to be ripped apart, and children will be trapped in homelessness for generations to come.” Shelter is calling for 90,000 social rent homes to be built each year for the next ten years.
The financial pressures on councils extend beyond the housing debt. UK councils collectively owe £97.8bn to lenders. In June/July 2024, over £240m was owed in rent arrears to local authorities, up from £147m in 2019. More than 200 local authorities in England have policies that disqualify prospective tenants from bidding on social housing if they have rent arrears, a practice critics say traps homeless families in a debt spiral. Some councils are struggling with Housing Revenue Account deficits and are calling for a review of the 2012 self-financing agreement.
Suzanne Muna, secretary and co-founder of the Social Housing Action Campaign, said the figures “expose a deluded government that blindly parrots horribly simplistic ‘build, baby, build’ targets as if this offers a universal cure – it doesn’t”. She described the situation as “a systemic failure of successive governments” and said it was “now actively exploited by private landlords and housing associations who are converting traditional family homes into temporary accommodation to lease to councils at extortionate rents”. She called for “a fundamentally different approach to the provision of public housing. This demands massive, sustained investment in council housing.”
The government has promised what it calls a “council housing revolution”. Its £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme aims to deliver 300,000 new social and affordable homes over a decade, with at least 60% designated for social rent – equating to approximately 180,000 homes, roughly six times the number built in the decade leading up to 2024. In October 2024, an additional £500m was allocated to the programme to deliver up to 5,000 new affordable social homes, followed by a further £300m in February 2025 for up to 2,800 extra homes. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We need more social homes, which is why our Social Housing Bill tackles the decades of sell-off that has left over a million families on waiting lists with nowhere to turn. Our reforms will change the landscape for councils, give them confidence to once again build at scale, and is backed by the £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme.”
Yet critics note that the net loss of social homes continues. In 1969, more social rent homes were built in England than in the last 13 years combined. The 1960s saw 1.24 million social homes constructed; the 2010s delivered only 150,000. In 2023/24, fewer than 10,000 social rent homes were built. “While the number of new social homes has fallen off a cliff, homelessness has climbed to record levels, with families worrying their wait for a safe and secure home will exceed their lifetime,” Elliott said.
