Email your Councillors: Let’s get councils building social homes again

Councils being saddled £31.8 billion in debt is stopping them from building social housing. And without a significant increase in social housing, housing will continue to be unaffordable and levels of homelessness will continue to rise.

We're in a bizarre position where councils are spending huge amounts of their money on Housing Revenue Account debt to the Treasury rather than on building new social homes.

That’s why we’re calling on the government to cancel this debt; to unlock councils' ability to build hundreds of thousands more decent social homes that everyone can afford.

A coalition of over a hundred councils agree that this would help them deliver more social homes. But we need more councils to call on government to make this happen.

Please, email your councillors today and ask them to sign our open letter to the Chancellor so we can get councils building social homes again.

• • Getting councils building and why it's important

    Councils used to build loads of social homes. In the 60s and 70s, councils built over 100,000 of them every year on average. They gave millions of people a foundation to thrive.

    A 2012 financial agreement was made between councils and the government, but successive governments broke their side of the deal. They did things like pressuring councils to sell more homes through Right to Buy at a bigger discount. This has made the debt councils have to pay back unsustainable. The debt, known as Housing Revenue Account debt, means huge amounts of council money is paid to the Treasury rather than on building new social homes.

    Our research shows that for every £1 billion of HRA debt that is written off, an estimated 8,900 new social rent homes could be built. If all the debt was written off, we could unlock investment for 284,000 new social homes.

    The government can cancel HRA debt without having any immediate impact on its fiscal rules. That's because the money is essentially owed from one part of the public sector (councils) to another (the Treasury). It's already on their balance sheet.

    This government promised a council housing revolution. With over 176,000 children living in temporary accommodation right now, we need urgent, ambitious action from this government to build enough social homes to turn the tide on the housing emergency. Please, email your councillors today.