As London’s smallest local authority by area and number of residents, the City of London Corporation’s housing waiting list is also the smallest in London at 907 households.
More recent data from the authority suggests this could have increased closer to 1,000 households.
However, despite its smaller housing register, the City of London’s waiting times are not the lowest city-wide, though they are lower than neighbouring boroughs in Central London. For example, waiting times for one-bedroom properties are 643 days, making the City of London the 15th highest waiting time for this property type across all London local authorities.
For two-bedroom properties, the City of London has third lowest waiting time across the capital at 516 days, while for larger properties of three and four or more bedrooms, households wait on average for 1,142 days and 751 days respectively. These are closer to the London average for larger properties but remain an outlier in Central London.
The City of London’s housing landscape is unusual for London as a whole due to the City being largely a commercial centre. The local authority directly manages around 450 homes alongside 230 managed by private registered providers.
Wheelchair-adapted properties in the City have a waiting time of 986 days. The City was one of only eight local authorities who provided specific data for wheelchair-adapted homes. Other local authorities may have incorporated wheelchair-adapted homes into their standard housing allocations policy. Among boroughs who provided specific data, Enfield has the highest waiting time at 1,643 days while Havering has the lowest at 358 days.
The City’s allocations policy is a mixed methods system of banding and points-based scoring. This has four main bands reflecting points value between 0-4000 points, allocated according to the priority of reasonable preference for individual household circumstances. Higher priority is placed on households with urgent and emergency needs, while lower priority is given to households assessed as intentionally homeless or with an indirect connection to the City via an employer.
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.