JLL: more support for house builders needed as social housing waiting list could top two million in decade

According to data from MHCLG, 3,625 social homes were lost to demolitions during 2023-24 and 8,656 social homes were lost through Right to Buy sales.

JLL also highlighted that changes to rules on Right to Buy will mean this becomes “less significant an issue going forward”.

It said the scale of the problem is such that, at current building rates, it would take 21 years to clear England’s current housing waiting list – that is, if nobody was added. However, with demand increasing and additions rising at current rates, the list could top two million by March 2034.

Marcus Dixon, director of UK residential research at JLL, called for more partnerships and better communication around Section 106 to support house builders to deliver more affordable homes. He said it was “abundantly clear” that the current approach to delivery and funding would not be enough to address the undersupply.

“The 43,000 increase in the number of households on the social housing waiting list is a stark reminder that while government housing targets remain ambitious, we must find a way to deliver more affordable homes at scale,” Mr Dixon said.

“Just to hold waiting list numbers steady, we’d have needed to have seen almost 70 per cent more affordable homes delivered in the last 12-month period.”

He added: “Delivery of additional affordable homes has hovered around 60,000 units per annum for a few years now. It is abundantly clear that the current approach to delivery and funding isn’t sufficient to address the undersupply.

“If we expect house builders to build the majority of these affordable homes, we need to ensure that there is a market for completed units (through more partnerships and better communication around Section 106) as well as sufficient occupier demand cross-tenure.”

With the exception of the East of England, every region has seen a rise in the number of people on the social housing register.

JLL’s research showed that the North East and North West are particularly heavily affected. The North East has seen a 28 per cent increase in its social housing waiting list in the past three years, while the North West has seen a rise of around a fifth.

Taking the average over three years, the North East has seen an annual rise in demand of 8.7 per cent, while the North West’s increases are at 6.3 per cent a year.

JLL said that due to London’s relative population size, while annualised percentage changes may not be as pronounced as in the North, the scale of delivery needed is “much greater”.

In the past three years, 40,268 affordable homes were delivered in the capital, outstripping delivery in every other region. Meanwhile the waiting list increased by 40,044, at a time when the cost of development is increasing.

It is a similar picture across all tenures in the capital. JLL said the difference between recent completions of all tenures and the London housing target of 80,000 homes per year means delivery would need to more than double, increasing by 114 per cent, to satisfy need.

In June last year, JLL called for politicians to abolish the Right to Buy scheme and set realistic housebuilding targets, after finding that it would cost £205bn to build enough homes to clear England’s social housing waiting list.

In January this year, the government revealed that more than 200 registered providers and local authorities have signed up to Homes England’s service aimed at facilitating the sale of unsold homes delivered through Section 106 agreements.

The Section 106 Affordable Housing Clearing Service, which launched in December, is aimed at tackling the problem of a drop in demand from registered providers and local authorities for Section 106 units. This fall in demand is leaving developers unable to proceed with sites unless or until buyers can be found.