MORE than 1,000 people waiting for social housing in Bracknell are stuck in "unhygienic, cramped or inadequate" accommodation, new figures reveal.

The housing charity Shelter has expressed outrage at families across England left in desperate need while councils are “haemorrhaging” thousands of social homes.

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Bracknell Forest Borough Council had 1,108 households on its waiting list who were identified as staying in unsanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory living conditions at the end of March 2019.

​They formed part of 1,501 households on the list, according to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government statistics – although this was a 4 per cent decrease from the total number waiting a year previously.

However, the council say the number of households on the register has reduced to 1,423 since March 2019.

Nikki Edwards, executive director of people, said: “Bracknell Forest Council does not hold its own housing stock, and allocation of social housing is done by means of the Housing Register, in accordance with our allocations policy. The number of households on the register has reduced to 1,423 since March 2019.

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“A household defined as overcrowded is not the same as unsanitary or unsatisfactory living conditions. The majority of households will be on the register due to being deemed overcrowded within the policy definition. In Bracknell Forest, our policy allocates a bedroom per child from birth, rather than requiring children to share a room (depending on age and sex), which the legislation allows. "This means we have more households deemed ‘overcrowded’ than households with the same circumstances in other boroughs.”

​The opposite pattern was seen across England as a whole, where the number on waiting lists rose by 4 per cent to 1.2 million.

​Of those, more than one in five were being forced to wait in substandard accommodation.

Meanwhile, Shelter said its own analysis of government figures showed there was a net loss of more than 17,000 social homes last year, with sales and demolitions outweighing new builds.

The charity is calling for investment in a new generation of social housing to be reflected in the Government’s forthcoming Budget.

“With over a million families in desperate need of social housing, it is absolutely outrageous that we are haemorrhaging thousands of secure social homes every year,” said Polly Neate, Shelter’s chief executive.

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“All the while families are forced to live in overcrowded conditions, single parents are making the impossible choice of eating or paying the rent, and children are growing up homeless in grim B&Bs.”

The number of households on council housing waiting lists has dropped by 34 per cent over the last decade.

But Shelter said this was partly down to a change to the law in 2011, which allowed councils to set their own rules for who to accept onto them in the first place.

Government figures also show that, of all new social rent households with a known waiting time in 2018-19, 48 per cent had been on the list for at least a year before securing a new home.

A government spokeswoman said 141,000 new social homes had been created since 2010.

She added: “Last year we delivered more homes than any year in the last 30 years and will deliver a million more in this parliament.

“We abolished the borrowing cap so councils can build more social homes, giving families the chance to find somewhere safe and secure.”