Editor's note: This brief was summarised by The Property AI Newsroom from a report by Property118. Read the original article for full details.

Burnham Announces £340m Drive to End Rough Sleeping and Boost Council Housing

Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government has announced an urgent national drive to end rough sleeping, backed by an additional £340 million. The government has also promised a substantial increase in council housebuilding.

The announcement comes as Manchester’s experience with rising temporary accommodation costs is highlighted as an early warning of the current national housing crisis. Research cited in the Property118 report shows that, between 2013 and 2018, Manchester City Council’s expenditure on temporary housing supplied through private agencies rose from £1.6 million to just under £10 million. The council’s separate bill for placing homeless people in bed and breakfast accommodation and hotels increased from around £650,000 to £3 million over the same period. Combined, these costs rose from approximately £2.25 million to almost £13 million, an increase of 478% in five years.

The report notes that these rising costs were linked to broader pressures in the private rented sector, including higher taxation, increased regulation, and rising operating costs for landlords. Some landlords responded by increasing rents or selling properties, making affordable private rented homes harder to find. This led to more families presenting as homeless and the council procuring more expensive, short-term accommodation from private providers.

The research referenced in the article suggests that policy changes, such as the restriction of mortgage interest relief for individual landlords (Section 24), may have contributed to these trends. However, the article cautions that housing pressures rarely have a single cause and does not attribute Manchester’s homelessness crisis to one policy alone.

For letting agents and inventory clerks, the developments in Manchester and the government’s new commitments may signal ongoing changes in demand for both private and council housing, as well as the continued importance of monitoring policy impacts on the rental sector.