Britain is running out of private rental accommodation, according to landlords and letting agencies.The claim comes as the Department of Communities and Local Government prepared to publish its most recent survey on the private rented sector.
As local authorities have been increasingly forced to turn to the private rented sector there has been a corresponding increase in the number of complaints – in the past two years alone there has been a 25 per cent jump.
According to figures recently published by homelessness charity Shelter and the BBC, some 1,477 landlords are the subjects of 86,000 complaints to local authorities on matters as diverse as illegal evictions, harassment, disrepair, dangerous gas, and dangerous wiring.
A record number of new tenancies last year mean the private rental sector is “nearing capacity”, said the Association of Residential Letting Agents which surveyed its 6,000 members, 74 per cent of whom said demand now vastly outstrips supply – particularly in London and the south east.
ARLA president Tim Hyatt said: “The UK cannot rely on the rental sector to support the housing market in perpetuity. The reality is that there is a finite amount of rental property and unless both housing supply and mortgage availability improves, then renters will find that their options in the market are reduced.
”New house building is at a post-war low – 134,000 new homes were built in Britain in 2010 – as owner occupation falls from a little under three quarters 10 years ago to below two thirds within the next decade as rents and house prices are expected to jump by at least a fifth.
A joint report authored by the Chartered Institute of Housing, the National Housing Federation and Shelter says ministers have failed to address the growing problems of homelessness, housing supply, cost of housing and affordability of private rented accommodation. The organisations say they are seeing for the first time in five years a rise in the number of homeless acceptances and the use of temporary accommodation to house homeless households.
They acknowledge that the Government has made progress in reducing the number of empty homes, improving mobility within the social housing sector and increasing the number of affordable home completions since coming into office. But housebuilding is now at its lowest level since 1924 even as more and more people become reliant on housing benefit.
