More than 1,000 households stuck on waiting list for social housing in Rugby

Housing charity Shelter said the figures are “chilling” and called for the Government to increase the funding for new social homes.

The latest Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government data shows that in March 2018 there were 1,092 households on the housing waiting list in Rugby.

That is 51 per cent higher than two years earlier.

Of those, 289 were households with some medical necessity, while a further 254 were living in unhygienic or overcrowded housing.

In Rugby, there were 28 vacant homes by the end of March 2018, all of them owned by the council.

Only 23,000 council homes were available in 2017-18 despite 1.1 million people needing help.

Polly Neate, Shelter chief executive, said: “When you compare the number of households waiting with the tiny number of available homes, and the trickle of new social homes being built, you understand how chilling today’s housing crisis is.

“It’s not just those in greatest need crying out for the chance of a stable home either, hundreds of thousands of older people and young families are also desperate to escape the private renting trap.”

Cllr Martin Tett, housing spokesman at the Local Government Association, said: “A genuine renaissance in council housebuilding is the only way to boost housing supply and tackle the housing waiting lists many councils have.”

Over the last years, Rugby’s social housing stock has risen slightly.

By the end of March 2017, there were 6,370 social and council homes, up from 6,180 in 2012.

A spokesman for the MHCLG said: “For the last 30 years, governments of all stripes and types have failed to build enough homes.”