‘Tragedy’ as Bucks families no longer qualify for social housing under stricter rules

The number of people on the housing waiting list Bucks Home Choice has been halved, Conservative-led Buckinghamshire Council announced this week after it toughened the eligibility criteria and asked everyone to re-register.

Applicants must now have lived in the county for five rather two years to qualify for residency, while anyone who is over 55 and has no local connection to Buckinghamshire will be ‘ineligible for the housing register’, according to the council’s impact assessment.

Opposition Councillor Robin Stuchbury criticised the tightening of the housing rules after the revelation at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting that the waiting list had been slashed by more than 50 per cent.

The Labour member told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “The regrettable thing about this is that these decisions will be seen as legal.

“But if you’re a family hoping to have a home in Buckinghamshire and find out you are no longer on the list, what a tragedy that will be for them and it further reinforces the view that they really don’t get social housing.”

Around 3,500 applicants are currently waiting for social housing on the council’s list as of this week, compared to 7,872 households in January of this year when re-registration began.

The council does not have its own social housing but uses Bucks Home Choice to allocate affordable housing via housing providers in the council area.

The list saw over 1,500 tenancies allocated during 2023/24, according to Cllr Mark Winn, cabinet member for homelessness and regulatory services.

He told Tuesday’s cabinet meeting that the ‘mammoth task’ of reregistration saw the removal of some people whose circumstances had changed and no longer needed to be on the list.

Cllr Winn said: “It is normal for the list to reduce when re-registration takes place. Some will undoubtedly have left the list because of the qualification period increasing.”

The qualification period is the five years Bucks applicants must now have lived in the county to be eligible, which Cllr Winn said was in line with nearby areas such as Slough, while it was still lower than neighbouring Dacorum’s 10-year residency requirement.

Cllr Winn claimed the changes support and give priority to people ‘in greatest housing need’ and give residents who have flexibility greater opportunity to bid on housing across the county.

He said: “It is a fair and more efficient allocation of scarce affordable housing resources.”

However, Cllr Stuchbury said: “This isn’t the way to manage the need for social housing, it should be a needs based approach.

“Just simply removing people from the list does not remove the need, and words of mitigation around ‘this is in line with such and such’ will be absolutely no comfort to a family in Bucks that find out they no longer qualify for social housing.”

Cllr Winn stressed that no changes were being made for the housing applications of domestic abuse survivors, whose local connection requirements are already waived by the council.

During the re-registration process, the council said residents were still able to bid on properties and that the authority was still able to add people threatened will homelessness to its system.

Bucks Home Choice is not just for people who are homeless but is also for other housing needs including people who need more bedrooms, downsizers and those who wish to enter specialised accommodation.