An extra 200 properties could be used as council houses by Sheffield City Council to halt growing need for temporary B&B accommodation.

The gap in what the local authority spent on B&Bs and what it was able to retrieve from the government was £4.9m in 2023/24. This figure is predicted to reach £6.6m in 2024/25, according to a report by the housing committee in March.

“In the worst-case scenario, if we do not develop alternatives and sufficient service improvements, over 1,300 households could be in B&B by 2028 and the financial loss would continue to increase,” the report said.

The strategy set out by the city council aims to reduce the overall number of temporary accommodation placements from the current figure of 700, to around 500 by the end of the proposed policy. The report states that by 2028, over 1,300 B&Bs may have to be used, which would cause major financial issues.

At the moment, the city council doesn’t have an accommodation strategy or policy. The report from Sheffield City Council said: “We currently work strategically rather than reactively.”

Last year, a review about Sheffield’s housing services was completed by the consultancy Campbell Tickell. 

This revealed that homelessness services were overwhelmed with demand, with Sheffield placing disproportionately high numbers of single people into temporary accommodation compared with other councils nationally.

Campbell Tickell’s housing review recommended Sheffield City Council to invest in workforce development, make greater use of commissioned supported housing, and improve access to the Private Rental Sector (PRS) as an alternative to Social Housing.

Temporary accommodation is a national crisis, with England as a whole spending more than £2bn annually on allocating homes for those without a home.

The report said “So that we can do this quickly, we are planning to use more of our own council housing in the next 2 years.

“We currently use about 450 out of our 2700 homes for temporary accommodation. This would only be a temporary increase so we have time to do more to provide suitable accommodation in the long term.”

A consultation exercise will take place through the Spring, with the final strategy to be brought back for approval in June.

The Policy will help deliver the goals of the Homelessness Prevention and Sleeping Rough Strategy 2023-2028.