The London borough building so many council homes they account for 1 in 3 currently under construction in England
One of England’s most crowded boroughs is building one in three of the country’s new council homes, new stats show. Work started on 726 council homes in Southwark last year, according to government figures despite the borough already having crammed in a lot of housing, and the council being the bigest local authority landlord in London.
Across all of England, construction began on 2,234 new council houses in the same period. It means a third of all council homes started last year are in Southwark, which is the seventh most densely populated area in England. Southwark Council hopes the new properties will help house some of the 17,200 people currently waiting for a council house in the borough.
Jordan McLaughlin, 24, moved into one of 10 newly built council homes on Welsford Street in Bermondsey last year. Mr McLaughlin, his mother and sister had previously been sharing a cramped two-bedroom council flat around the corner and needed somewhere bigger.
He said: “We’re just really happy as a family that these new builds came to fruition. It makes life a lot more comfortable. We needed the space. This place has four bedrooms and two bathrooms. It’s perfect for us.
“It has made our family life easier; we aren’t on top of each other. We aren’t arguing about space. We have separate bathrooms to get ready and there’s enough space in the kitchen so that we can do what we need to do.”
He added: “Every single part of this house is an improvement. The only thing we don’t have which we did at the old place is parking. I’m having to use visitor permits at the moment.”
Rajni, 34, moved into another of the Welsford Street homes with her husband last year. They had previously been living in a third floor council flat near East Street Market in Walworth, but it had become unsuitable after her husband had a stroke which left him paralysed and reliant on a wheelchair.
She said: “Everything is better here. It’s much more suitable for my husband. He couldn’t access the third floor in the flat after the stroke. He spent a year and a half in hospital and eight months in a care home.
“We had only one room in the previous flat. There was no life, no nothing. He has hope now. We have a garden here and two bedrooms and a bathroom. It’s much better for a wheelchair.”
Her neighbour Debbie Hastilow, 63, downsized from a council flat on nearby Camilla Road. She said: “It’s lovely. I was living on an estate before and we had problems with antisocial behaviour. There were youths outside the kitchen window and had a big knife at the bottom of our garden.
“I was looking to move for three to four years. I couldn’t believe when these came up, especially for council tenants. I thought they would be private.”
Southwark Council claims it has the most ambitious council house building programme of anywhere in Britain, according to its website. Labour, which controls the council, promised to build 11,000 new council homes by 2043 in the run-up to the 2014 local elections.
But a council report from February cast doubt on whether this would be possible. The document said the council didn’t have enough money to build 11,000 homes by 2043 and blamed the apparent sidestepping of the pledge on surging construction costs and the rising cost of borrowing. The 11,000 pledge remains on the council’s website.
Building more council homes also doesn’t mean the number of council properties in Southwark is increasing. Government figures show there were 1,346 fewer council homes in the borough as of 2022 than in 2014 when the 11,000 pledge was made.
Right to buy, a government policy that allows council tenants to purchase their property, as well as council homes being knocked down as part of estate regeneration programmes in the borough has resulted in a net loss of homes.
But for the residents who have moved into the new council homes built by Southwark, the properties have been life changing. Mum-of-three, Zohra Chahuoat, and her family moved into one of 17 new flats built on the Goschen estate in Camberwell last July.
She said: “In our old flat we were overcrowded. It was small and one bedroom. This has three bedrooms. I was waiting for about four years to find somewhere bigger for us. The space is very good.”
Councillor Kieron Williams, leader of Southwark Council, said: “Having a home is not an optional extra in life, it’s an essential. That’s why we’ve made building genuinely affordable homes our first priority in Southwark, with over three thousand new council homes built or under construction across our borough, more than any other council.
“We’re investing in these new council homes because we know they’ll transform lives for generations to come with their low rents and lifetime tenancies standing in stark contrast to London’s broken and unaffordable private rented sector. It’s been hard work to get here, but we are now building council homes on a scale not seen in our country since the seventies.”
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