Council leaders warn of temporary accommodation crisis

The Local Government Association has warned that as many as 119,830 children in England will be living in temporary accommodation during the end-of-year Summer school break.

Councils say that the number of children spending the summer holidays in temporary accommodation would fill more than 4,500 classrooms, underlining the need to build more social housing.

The LGA wants to work with government on a long-term plan to tackle homelessness, so everyone has a safe and secure permanent home, as part of the recovery from coronavirus. It is calling on the government to let councils build back locally, by giving them the powers and resources to deliver a social housing building programme of 100,000 new homes a year, to help address the housing shortage.

Councils are also calling for further reform of the Right to Buy scheme so that councils can retain 100 per cent of receipts, have flexibility to combine Right to Buy receipts with other government grants and be able to set the size of discounts locally.

Darren Rodwell, LGA housing spokesperson, said: “Having a safe, secure, permanent home is the bedrock of any child getting the very best start in life, so it is tragic that thousands of children face having to spend their summer holidays living in temporary accommodation.

“This is a sad reflection of the lack of housing in this country and demonstrates the urgent need to build more social homes. This won’t happen overnight, but it is vital that councils, working with government, are given the powers to get building homes again at a scale that drastically reduces homelessness, as we look to build back the nation following the pandemic.”