New research shows the need for a council housing revolution

Our research on social home delivery

We have published new research showing that the delivery of social rent homes is failing to meet demand, while council housebuilding remains at historically low levels.

The reality of England's housing emergency is that we need 90,000 new social rent homes each year for the next 10 years. Yet current delivery is just a fraction of what is required. By contrast, councils built an average of 120,000 social rent homes a year in the 1960s.

Our research highlights the urgent action needed by the government to get councils building again, drive a council housing revolution, and ensure everyone has a foundation to thrive.

Key terms

Social rent - rent that is linked to local incomes and is therefore truly affordable for everyone, including people on low pay. Social rent homes can be delivered by councils, housing associations or private developers but are usually owned and managed by councils or housing associations.

Affordable rent - rent that can be up to 80% of the market rate. Affordable rent homes are typically owned and managed by housing associations.

Delivery - when a newly built home becomes ready for occupation, or an existing property is acquired - for example, where an empty property is brought back into use or a private home is purchased by a local authority or housing association.

Providers - organisations that deliver social or affordable housing, including councils and housing associations.

Local authority district - a geographical are administered by a council with responsibilities including housing. England is split into 296 districts.

A historic drop in social rent house building

England has a strong history of building social rent homes to ensure everyone has a foundation to thrive. Between 1945 and 1970, 52% of all new homes were for social rent - more than 3.1 million homes.

In the 1960s, when annual delivery regularly exceeded 300,000 homes, councils delivered an average of 120,104 each year. But by the 1980s this fell dramatically. By 1989, just 14% of new homes were social rent, and only 8% came from councils. In the decade starting in 2000, councils across England delivered an average of 275 homes per year. Since 2011, the proportion of social rent homes built by councils has become miniscule, hovering at around 1% - with an annual average of just 1,760 homes.

There were 69% fewer social rent homes delivered today than in 2010

Our research analysed data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to understand how things stand today. We looked at delivery figures from all providers, including acquisitions and new builds.

We found that the long-term decline has continued. Social rent home delivery has dropped from 39,562 in 2010-11 to just 12,198 in 2024-25. A decrease of 69%.

The graph below plots the annual delivery of social rent homes, as well as affordable rent housing. It shows that as social rent home delivery declined, affordable rent home delivery increased significantly.

These changes happened practically simultaneously, following changes to rules on central government grant funding introduced in 2011. As a result, delivery of social rent homes became much less of a priority, while delivery of affordable rent homes (which, ironically are not affordable to much of the population) grew.

Delivery is low across England

We reviewed MHCLG data on social rent delivery across England's local authority districts to better understand delivery across the country. The findings reveal persistently low levels of delivery in many districts.

Over the last two years, 60 districts recorded no new social rent homes at all. That represents 20% of all districts in England. Looking back over five years, 29 districts - 10% of all districts - had no additional social rent homes. In the last ten years, 184 districts (62%) added 200 or fewer new social rent homes to their housing stock, the equivalent to 20 new homes a year.

Councils play a unique role in delivering social rent homes because they know their communities and can build in the right places. We therefore also examined how many social rent homes were delivered by councils, and the results were shocking. Over the last ten years, three quarters of councils (74%, or 219 districts) have directly delivered 50 or fewer social homes. Over half (57%) delivered 10 or fewer, and 43% delivered none. This is a staggering decline, compared to the millions of social rent homes historically delivered by councils.

Supply is falling far short of demand

These low rates of delivery are thrown into sharp relief when compared with housing need.

In 2025, more than 1.3 million households were on England's social housing waiting lists. If the average rate of delivery seen over the last two years continued, it would take 119 years to provide a social rent home for each of those households.

To understand the scale of the shortfall across England, we compared waiting list figures in each region with the number of social rent homes delivered in 2024-25.

The interactive map below shows that need is not met in any region, and that is particularly acute in the North West and London. In the North West, 887 social rent homes were delivered, meaning 237 households were waiting for each one. In London, 162 households were waiting for each of the 2,105 social rent homes delivered. Even in the West Midlands, which had the highest ratio of delivery to need, there were 61 households waiting for every new social home (2,081 homes in total).

England needs a council housing revolution

The housing emergency cannot be denied. There are 134,210 households homeless in temporary accommodation, including 176,130 children, which cost local authorities over £2.8 billion last year. There are over 1.3 million households on the waiting list for a social home, many of whom have waited years.

Our research has shown that even in the face of acute need, delivery of social rent homes is woefully insufficient. The housing emergency requires 90,000 new social rent homes each year for the next ten years, and yet in 2024-25 there were just over 12,000.

Nothing short of a council housing revolution is required, including a radical increase in the delivery of social homes by local authorities. The government is taking steps in the right direction with changes to Right to Buy protecting social housing stock, and the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme providing funding for new social rent homes. But more needs to be done to unlock the potential for local authorities to build.

With the right support and powers, local authorities could ramp up to delivering 34,000 of the 90,000 social rent homes a year we need through both new build and acquisition of existing homes.

A council housing revolution is possible and urgently needed.

Our research in the press

Read the Guardian's report on our research: Social housing rates 'would take 119 years to clear at current building rate'.