New Stats Reveal the Scale of Stockport’s Housing Shortage (Stockport Post, March 2024)

My latest article in the Stockport Post.

Recent data revealed to me by Stockport Homes shines a stark light on Stockport’s housing crisis. As of January 2024 there were 5,995 households on the waiting list for social housing in Stockport, and only 419 empty properties to serve them – the lowest number of properties on record. A decade ago, there were three times as many homes available.  

With such little housing to go around, Stockport Homes report that record-breaking numbers of families in Stockport are facing homelessness. Practices such as using hotel accommodation instead of providing homes are becoming more frequently relied upon than ever before.  

Although this data is sobering, it sadly does not come as a surprise. Each day, my email inbox is filled with correspondence from constituents who are suffering due to Britain’s housing crisis. Being stuck in ‘temporary’ accommodation for years on end or living in a desperately overcrowded flat is corrosive to people’s health and wellbeing. It holds children back and damages people’s life chances.  

Britain’s social housing stock has diminished significantly since the 1980s, due to a combination of Right to Buy and new legislation limiting the ability of local authorities to build and manage social housing. In the years that followed, the rate at which social homes have been sold off has far outpaced their replacement. Since 2010, social housing has suffered further from declining investment from successive Conservative governments, with house building falling to its lowest level since before World War I.   

The effects of the social housing shortage are reverberating throughout our housing system. It has contributed to increased competition in the private rented sector, and thus spiralling rents, falling standards and declining homeownership. 

This crisis is not going to disappear by itself. Simply put, we need a government that is willing to build more housing, and for that, we need a General Election as soon as possible - so that we can elect a new Labour government with a long-term plan to deliver the biggest boost in social and affordable housing in a generation, create measures to help first time buyers and ensure that developers can no longer wriggle out of their responsibility to build affordable homes.

I urge everybody who is not registered to vote to do so to ensure that you can make your voice heard. 

As ever, if you live or work in Stockport constituency, please do not hesitate to contact me at navendu.mishra.mp@parliament.uk or 0161 480 0833.