Plymouth council has plans to tackle homelessness and improve housing conditions

Council chiefs have said they are making plans to tackle the city's housing and homelessness crisis as figures reveal they had to spend more than £7m to house people in temporary accommodation since 2021.

A freedom of Information request by the firm Personal Injury Claims UK claimed that the 906 households had lived in temporary accommodation in Plymouth during the financial year of 2023/24.

Temporary accommodation (TA) is the term used to describe accommodation secured by a local housing authority under their statutory homelessness functions. The data came in light of the news that, across the UK, the number of homeless people in local authority-provided TA rose to record levels.

In 2023, about 109,000 households in England – including 142,000 children – were in emergency housing between June and September, up 10 percent on the same period the previous year.

Back in 2021/22, the number of households in TA in Plymouth stood at 777, with a possible cause for this being the ongoing cost-of-living crisis forcing people to find other, cheaper places to live. A year later, this number increased to 1052, which is the highest number of people living in TA in the past three years.

Over the past year, the city has seen a slight drop in the number of TA residents, with the number standing at 906.

When authorities run out of immediate space in specific TA premises, other types of accommodation are used to house people such as hotels and bed and breakfasts. Hotels are one the main forms of TA, and across England in the past year, 50,546 people lived in hotel accommodation, up 10% from last year.

With the number of TA residents increasing significantly in recent years, so has the cost of temporary accommodation, with local authorities and councils having to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds.

To compound the crisis, the short-term rental market, such as Airbnb, has reduced the number of properties that councils can use.

Personal Injury Claims UK said they obtained figures on the cost of temporary accommodation to councils and housing authorities in the past three years. In 2021/22, TA cost Plymouth City Council £3,285,126 before this figure increased to £6,512,336 a year later. The cost of TA in Plymouth has jumped up to £7,643,023 in 2023/24.

As a result of the crisis, with councils across England having to spend more than £1 billion on temporary accommodation last year, the problem is pushing some local authorities towards bankruptcy. Frustrated at continued cuts to the local services grant by the Conservative government, some councils took financially risky steps to try and cover the soaring costs of homelessness.

In December 2023 it was reported that a poll by the Local Government Association found that nearly 20 percent of council leaders thought it was 'fairly or very likely' their council would go bust within the following 15 months.

Personal Injury Claims UK states that it "offers free advice and support to those impacted by temporary housing, especially those who suffer an injury" and "operate a 24-hour helpline and claim online form". The firm advertises it can specialise in personal injury claims if people suffer harm because of faults or defects with accommodation.

While advertising that it offers a "100% no win no fee" its customer support representative stated that it would take "a 25% deduction at the end of a successful case".

In response to the firm's findings Councillor Chris Penberthy, Plymouth City Council's Cabinet Member for Housing, Communities and Cooperative Development, said: "We have made absolutely no secret about the fact that, like many towns and cities across the country, Plymouth is feeling the effects of a housing crisis.

"There are far too many Plymouth households living in temporary accommodation, which is why we're having to be imaginative and come up with fresh ideas to help tackle the issues and directly intervene to increase the provision of our services, both in terms of resource and temporary accommodation.

"Just this year we have bought a city-centre student accommodation block to provide improved temporary accommodation ourselves; lent money to local charity PATH so that they can do likewise and been successful in obtaining government funding, like the Single Household Accommodation Programme, for yet more temporary accommodation through partners.

"We also have a Plan for Homes, which includes a range of activities to increase and accelerate the delivery of new homes while tackling homelessness and improving poor housing conditions.

"We will continue to do our best with the funding available to support local residents in need of housing, but we need more help. That’s why, along with our partners, we will continue to work with our MPs to lobby for a government-backed plan to provide long term solutions for the many people who find themselves homeless in our city."

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