Bromley has the eighth lowest waiting list for social housing in London with 2,772 households on the council’s housing register. Analysis of the wider South London sub-region shows Bromley’s nearest comparison is Sutton on 2,674 households, while neighbouring Croydon has 6,979 households on its housing register. However, more recent data from the borough suggests Bromley’s total could have increased to more than 3,200.
Bromley’s waiting times generally match the wider consensus trend of having lower waiting times in Outer London, with the borough having the 11th shortest waiting time for a one-bedroom property at 559 days.
Due to gaps in the data for waiting times, it is difficult to directly compare Bromley’s waiting times with other South London boroughs. However, from reported data, the borough closely matches Wandsworth for one-bedroom properties on 608 days, while the regional outlier, Sutton, has the lowest waiting time for this property size in London on 184 days.
Bromley has the lowest population density of any London borough at 2,299 people per square km, which is likely due in part to the borough being the largest by area. This may help explain in the borough’s shorter waiting times for larger properties, where Bromley has the shortest waiting times for three bedroom and four or more-bedroom properties in London at 343 days and 345 days respectively. In contrast, households requiring three-bedroom houses in Hackney wait 6,388 days, or around 16 and a half years longer than in Bromley.
Like neighbouring Bexley, Bromley directly manages a small number of council houses at 155 homes. As a result of the council’s transfer of homes to Broomleigh in 1992 (now owned by Clarion Housing Group), private registered providers of social homes in the borough manage 19,227 homes.
The council’s housing allocation policy identifies five bands of priority of reasonable preference with Band 1 designated for the most severe housing need, Band 4 for less priority and intentionally households, and an additional band for priority cases of extreme insanitary or unsatisfactory conditions. The council also codes its housing register to separate homelessness applications, existing Clarion Housing Group tenants managed through the housing register, and qualifying households who are not homeless or existing tenants.
Sources:
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Local Authority Housing Statistics data returns for 2022 to 2023
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Live tables on rents, lettings and tenancies; numbers of households on local authorities’ housing waiting lists, by district, England, from 1987
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Live tables on dwelling stock (including vacants); Dwelling stock by local authority and region, England, 2009-2023
- Office for National Statistics, Mid-Year Population Estimates, England and Wales, June 2023
- Greater London Authority, Land Area and Population Density, Ward and Borough data for 2023
- Sub-regions as defined by The London Plan
*A note on data sources. In order to provide comparisons of different local authorities total waiting lists, due to some boroughs not providing up to date information on the number of people on their social housing register we have used the most recent data (2022-23) published by MHCLG. Where boroughs provided us with more recent data, we have noted this.