A Barnet Council report reveals “acute supply and demand challenges” are driving demand for temporary accommodation, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Barnet Council's Colindale offices and (inset) cabinet member Ross Houston — Barnet Council’s Colindale offices and (inset) cabinet member Ross Houston

The number of Barnet families in temporary housing has risen by 22% in a year, a new report reveals.

Barnet Council said “acute supply and demand challenges” are driving temporary accommodation (TA) numbers and next year is on track to be higher still.

A report presented to cabinet on Monday (7th) stated there were set to be 2,880 households in TA by the end of 2024/25 and 3,100 by the end of 2025/26.

By the end of December there were 2,750 households, compared to 2,253 at the same time in 2023, rising by around a quarter in just one year.

Ross Houston, the council’s cabinet member for homes and regeneration, said everyone in the cabinet was “aware” of these numbers and that it represented a “real pressure”.

He said: “That’s just a reality of the temporary accommodation crisis we’re living with.”

Cllr Houston listed the mitigations Barnet Homes, the arm’s length management organisation in charge of the council’s housing stock, had put in place. These include the hiring of a mediation officer and senior prevention officer to take on effective prevention activity.

Kate Laffan, group director of resident services at The Barnet Group, the parent firm of Barnet Homes, added: “It’s part of our DNA to be stretching ourselves to be ambitious, to keep driving improvements wherever we can.

“Our targets are based on insight and data and, notwithstanding this very challenging environment for homelessness, we’ve achieved the highest level of homelessness prevention in five years. Clearly we’re not resting on [our] laurels.”

From around January to September last year Barnet Homes delivered 1,080 ‘prevention outcomes’ which the report said exceeded the outcomes delivered in the same period over the previous five financial years.

Other solutions to reducing the number of households in TA are increasing re-let times, with Kate adding the council was getting “much-needed social housing units back in circulation.”

She said: “A couple of years ago, pre-Covid, we were the best in London in terms of letting turnarounds and we want to get back to that point.”

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