# The housing squeeze: waiting lists and evictions

Two sides of housing pressure, from official records. At the end of March 2025, about 1,340,527 households were on a council housing waiting list in England, while across England and Wales courts ordered around 28,610 rented homes repossessed in the latest year. This page shows where waiting lists are longest, how evictions break down by type of landlord, and which areas see the most.

Source page: https://britishresilienceindex.com/deep-dive/housing-pressure
Machine readable data: https://britishresilienceindex.com/data/deep-dive/housing-pressure.json

## How to read this

Two sources. Households on local authority housing registers come from MHCLG Live Table 600, a count at 31 March each year for England. Evictions come from Ministry of Justice possession statistics: repossessions are homes taken back by county court bailiffs after a landlord possession claim, for England and Wales. The waiting list total counts applications, not unique households, so it overstates need; some households appear on more than one register.

## Long queues to get in, and rising evictions out

About 1,340,527 households were waiting for a council or housing association home in England at the end of March 2025, up 6.7 per cent on ten years earlier and rising again since 2018. At the other end, landlords repossessed around 28,610 rented homes through the courts in the latest year across England and Wales. The single largest route was the no fault Section 21 procedure, behind about 11,405 of those repossessions.

- **Waiting total**: 1,340,527
- **Repossessions**: 28,610
- **S21 repos**: 11,405

## The longest council waiting lists

England's council housing waiting lists hold about 1,340,527 households, concentrated in London and the big cities. Newham has the longest at 41,223. Lists fell sharply after councils were allowed to set their own eligibility rules in 2012, then began climbing again from 2018 as affordable housing stayed scarce.

| name | households |
|---|---|
| Newham | 41,223 |
| Brent | 36,534 |
| Lambeth | 29,187 |
| Tower Hamlets | 28,469 |
| Wakefield | 27,496 |
| Birmingham | 25,996 |
| Greenwich | 25,377 |
| Cornwall | 23,731 |
| Bristol | 22,464 |
| Leeds | 21,583 |

- **England total**: 1,340,527
- **Note**: Households on the housing register at 31 March 2025. The total counts applications and overstates unique need. Telford and Wrekin is excluded because it no longer keeps a register. Source: MHCLG Live Table 600.

## How rented homes are repossessed

Across England and Wales, courts repossessed about 28,610 rented homes in the year to March 2026. The no fault Section 21 route accounted for about 11,405, ahead of other private landlord claims at 9,504 and social landlord claims at 7,701. The areas with the most repossessions are heavily concentrated in London.

**By type**

| type | repossessions |
|---|---|
| Section 21 (no fault) | 11,405 |
| Other private landlord | 9,504 |
| Social landlord | 7,701 |

**Top las**

| name | repossessions |
|---|---|
| Newham | 984 |
| Birmingham | 691 |
| Redbridge | 615 |
| Enfield | 588 |
| Croydon | 544 |
| Barking and Dagenham | 528 |
| Lewisham | 514 |
| Ealing | 507 |
| Manchester | 502 |
| Greenwich | 457 |

- **Total**: 28,610
- **Note**: Landlord repossessions by county court bailiffs, rolling year to Q1 2026, England and Wales. Mortgage repossessions are counted separately and are not included. Source: MoJ Mortgage and Landlord Possession Statistics.

## For housing policy

- More than 1.3 million households are on a waiting list while evictions rise. Is the core problem the supply of affordable homes rather than how they are rationed?
- The no fault Section 21 route is the single largest cause of rented repossessions. What happens to these numbers as it is phased out?
- Both waiting lists and evictions concentrate in London and the big cities. Is housing pressure becoming a problem of a few places rather than the whole country?
- Waiting list totals count applications, not households, and councils count differently. Would a consistent measure of housing need change the picture?

## Sources

- Live tables on rents, lettings and tenancies, Table 600 (MHCLG) (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-rents-lettings-and-tenancies) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Mortgage and landlord possession statistics (Ministry of Justice) (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mortgage-and-landlord-possession-statistics) · Open Government Licence v3.0

## Caveats and data notes

- The waiting list figure counts applications on local authority registers at 31 March 2025, not unique households. Households can be on more than one register, so the total overstates the number of distinct households in need.
- Council waiting lists fell sharply after the Localism Act 2011 let authorities set their own eligibility rules from 2012, so comparisons across that period are not clean. The recent trend, rising since 2018, is the more reliable signal.
- Repossessions are homes actually taken back by county court bailiffs, the end of the eviction process, not the larger number of claims started. Figures are landlord possessions only; mortgage repossessions of owner occupiers are separate.
- Section 21 is the no fault possession route, where a landlord does not have to give a reason. It is being phased out under rental reform, so future figures will shift.
- Waiting lists are England only; evictions cover England and Wales. The two are shown together as measures of the same pressure, not as a single combined figure.
- Sources: MHCLG Live Table 600 and MoJ mortgage and landlord possession statistics.

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British Resilience Index, a non-partisan UK civic data project. Every figure is
reconciled to its primary official publisher before it is shown. Free to cite with
attribution: https://britishresilienceindex.com