ACUTE shortages of larger social housing mean that it would now take more than 100 years to clear waiting lists in some places, an analysis revealed today.

Data from the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government, analysed by housing charities, shows that in the nine worst-affected council areas, families needing homes with at least three bedrooms face waits of 67 years or more.

The most extreme delays are in London, where families in Westminster face projected waiting times of 107.6 years, followed by Enfield at 105.3 and Merton at 102.4 years.

London Councils, representing the capital’s boroughs, said that local authorities now spend £4 million a day on temporary accommodation, with homelessness-related costs having soared by 68 per cent in just one year.

Shelter policy and campaigns director Mairi MacRae said that building 90,000 social homes a year for a decade can end the housing emergency and save public money.

Jae Vail, of the London Renters Union, highlighted that a million properties sit empty.

“This is the brutal truth of a system that has been designed by the government to turn housing into a profit machine,” they said.

“It’s time to reclaim housing as a human right. We must fight to bring homes back into public hands and build a system that puts people before profit.”

And community union Acorn’s Eleesha Taylor-Barrett said that the figures show a “lifetime of unsafe and insecure housing” for families and called for the government to end the Right to Buy policy, stop the sell-off of social housing and build more council homes.

“In the meantime, we need rent controls, so tenants pushed into the private sector aren’t being forced to choose between their monthly rent payments and their most basic necessities,” she said.

Last month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced £2 billion in grant funding to deliver 18,000 new homes — hailed as a “down payment” on a longer-term plan for investment in social and affordable housing.

The government said that at least half of these homes will be for social rent.

A Momentum spokesperson said the statistics “reveal the scale of Britain’s housing emergency,” saying: “Projections show that the government’s affordable homes plan will fall well short of its proposed target, and that’s without a mass council house building programme in place.

“The Labour government must prioritise housing for the many.”