The Government’s response to Shelter's overcrowding petition shows it is still failing to deliver on the 2004 promise to update the woefully outdated 1935 overcrowding standard.

The Government’s response in full:

'This Government is committed to tackling overcrowding. An important part of this is to build more affordable homes sooner and make sure more of these are family-sized. That’s exactly why we’ve made housing a key priority, backed by an extra £1.5bn investment over the two years, and why we’re making sure that by 2010/11 a third of new affordable homes will have three or more bedrooms. 

'Prior to making any change to the statutory standards we want to ensure that we have the right processes in place to support overcrowded households.  We are currently funding, through a £15m programme, 54 ‘pathfinder’ areas to develop their own strategies and practical solutions to reduce overcrowding.

'Through this programme we are also building our evidence base which will help to establish the full cost, impact and timing of undertaking a phased and manageable move to a new statutory standard. 

'Local authorities can develop their own definition of overcrowding to determine which households have ‘reasonable preference’ for social housing, and use definitions that are much more generous than the statutory standard.

'The right long-term solution to overcrowding must be to increase supply of new houses: we have increased our investment in affordable housing over this year and next to deliver 112,000 new homes and we’ve launched the largest council house building programme in two decades.'

Shelter believes this response is unacceptable, and here are the reasons why:

• More than 650,000 families* are currently living in overcrowded homes, the highest level for 25 years 
• As long as the 1935 standard remains in place thousands of families living in excessively cramped conditions will continue to be told they are not officially overcrowded.
• The Government says that the delivery of more family-sized homes is key to tackling overcrowding.  Yet house building is at its lowest since 1946 and less than a quarter** of the affordable homes built in 2009 were family-sized.
• In 2008 the Government provided £15 million to support local authorities in developing strategies to combat overcrowding. This covers only 60 per cent of overcrowded families and equates to just £32 per household. This is nowhere near enough funding to genuinely tackle this issue.

Shelter believes the Government needs to stick to its promise to update the overcrowding standard and that more affordable homes need to be built as a matter of urgency.

Take action today!  

Sign the petition on the Number 10 website

*This figure is according to the Bedroom Standard measure and not according to the 1935 legislation.

** 23%