Around 50 residents and families in bidding war for each available council house in Doncaster

The statistics came in a report which outlines just under £500,000 of government money in order to identify brownfield sites for thousands of future council houses.

Housing Register bidding data shows 8,500 households are currently on the list looking for an affordable rented home. In the last full year prior to Covid-19 pandemic, figures show 1,662 properties were advertised and 82,891 bids were made.

Housing bosses at the council say this averages to 50 bids per property.

New information from the Learning Disabilities, Autism and Severe MentalHealth Study 2020 also suggests that 225 people will need accommodation with support over the next 10 years.

Council bosses say they have ‘high ambitions’ for its own Council House Build programme (CHBP) which was approved in 2020.

Housing chiefs want to accelerate the delivery of the next phases of the programme to complete them in five years, rather than 10 and meet housing needs where they have been identified in the 2019 Housing Need Study across the borough.

In June 2020 the Government launched ‘A New Deal for Britain’ which is set as the first steps in the strategy to rebuild Britain following Covid-19 and fuel economic recovery across the UK.

As part of this strategy, funding has been allocated by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to a number of Combined Authorities – including £40m to the South Yorkshire Combined Authority (SYCA) to support housing developments through a Brownfield Housing Fund (BHF).

Adrian Robertshaw, programme manager for strategic housing at DMBC, said: “The planned growth of the economy both locally within the borough and at wider regional and national levels will stimulate significant housing demand alongside the ambitions to grow employment, tourism and other forms of inward investment.

“The changing profile of our local residents means we need more homes suitable and attractive to us all in later life and homes that enable more residents to live independently whatever their personal needs.

“As the number of households in the Borough grows, we need more homes for these households. Every year we need 920 more new homes, of which the 2019 Housing Needs Study identifies the council needs 209 to be affordable.”