'We long for an affordable home to fit our family'

The number of households on the social housing register needing larger homes of three or more bedrooms has reached its highest level in more than a decade in England, a BBC investigation has found.

Among them are Joanna and her husband Rob, who live with their two children in a cramped two-bedroom cottage in Totnes, Devon.

They say soaring rents mean they cannot afford to move unless they find a suitable property through the social housing register, which has grown nationally from 1.1 million to 1.3 million households over the last five years.

Rob says the situation is frustrating: "You just think 'where's your quality of life when you work so hard and all you're doing is struggling to make ends meet?"

The Ministry of Housing says it is "improving the system" to get families into suitable social homes, while South Hams Council says it is "doing everything in its power" to address the housing crisis locally.

Joanna and Rob have lived in their Totnes home with their two children for 12 years.

In the South Hams, the family is among 1,490 households on the register, up 15% since 2020.

They say their landlords have been supportive, letting them create temporary separate spaces for the children.

Even so, space is tight.

"We've got boxes outside, in the garden, in the shed... we play space Tetris when we pass each other," adds Joanna, who works for a local charity.

Olive, 12, describes her home as a "one-way system".

Brother Fin agrees, saying the area is "really nice" but the house is "just too small": "I'm 15 and I'm nearly 6ft tall, every time I have to climb into bed I'm virtually folded in half.

"So many of my friends are better off than us and have their own houses and stuff, but so many of them are not and are in the same situation or a worse situation."

The parents say both private rental and buying locally are out of reach.

A three-bedroom rental would cost about double what they pay now, Joanna says, while toolmaker Rob adds: "The best answer is to buy a place, but nobody can afford to buy a place in Totnes now – not ordinary working families. You're looking at £350,000 for a three-bedroom house."

BBC analysis found households waiting for a home with three or more bedrooms now make up a bigger share of the social housing register than ever before in current records, both nationally and in Devon and Cornwall.

Ministry of Housing data shows in parts of the South West, like Mid Devon, Teignbridge and Torbay, the numbers waiting for a larger house are at their highest in more than a decade.

In Cornwall, the number of households waiting for a larger home has more than doubled in the last five years from 2,299 in 2019/2020 to 4,869 in 2024/25

Joanna's family are housed so are not a priority case, and the current average waiting time for a household with "moderate housing need" is a year and 10 months, according to South Hams Council.

Eight miles from the family's home, a digger carves its way across a former field at Clay Park. Beneath scaffolding, rows of timber-frame houses are taking shape.

It is the work of a Community Land Trust (CLT).

Volunteers at Totnes Transition Homes CLT secured the land in 2015, protecting it as social housing for local people - with rent to be set at about 60% of market rates.

CLT homes are allocated by the authority from the housing register. Priority is given to families with a local connection.

Joanna and her family have their eyes on a home here.

"For us, that building site represents hope," says Joanna.

"To have a place big enough and near the children's school would make such a big difference."

Erica Lewis, trustee for Totnes Transition Homes CLT, says it is the plight of families like Joanna and Rob's that spurred them on during the 16-year mission to get Clay Park built.

"The need here for affordable housing is pretty desperate," she says.

"The South Hams is one of those areas where housing relative to income is very, very difficult to afford to rent or buy, partly because it's so popular for second homes or retirees."

Lewis says she met many families "crammed into tiny homes" or "forced to constantly move on" during the process, some who had resorted to living in "campsites and campervans" in lanes around Totnes.

In Devon and Cornwall there were 49,435 households on the housing register list in March, according to Ministry for Housing figures, up 36% in five years.

Meanwhile, 1,858 new affordable homes for sale and rent were completed in the region in 2024/25, 155 of which were in the South Hams.

Tom Chance, from the CLT Network, says the need for social housing is "dire and getting worse" but access to funding in the vital early stages of CLT projects has been lost.

"The difference [an affordable home] can make to a typical working family can be huge," he says.

"We see kids having to do their homework on the loo, or they have no private space."

The CLT Network says securing land and planning permission is a complex process.

The network says the government's now defunct Community Housing Fund gave £190,000 to Transition Homes CLT for planning, surveys, assessments and legal matters.

Chance says a funding deficit in the pre-planning phase is a "real concern".

He says 46 projects in Devon and Cornwall received Community Housing Fund support, and only eight new projects have set up since its demise.

It now costs about £15,000 for each home "before you reach a point where you can apply for funding", Chance adds.

CLTs have completed 388 affordable homes in Devon and Cornwall, according to the CLT Network.

The government has allocated £39bn to the capital funding programme for affordable housing - but Chance says none of this supports early-stage CLT projects.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government says: "We understand how important it is that families can get suitable social homes, and we're taking action to improve the system.

"We are investing £20m in community-led housing, to help build more than 2,500 of these homes over the next decade.

"We're also delivering the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation, investing £39bn through our Social and Affordable Homes Programme, so families can get the homes they deserve."

Denise O'Callaghan, executive member for housing at South Hams District Council, says housing is a "top priority" and it supports projects including Clay Park to "improve the housing situation".

Citing examples of new affordable homes in Dartmouth, St Ann's Chapel and Kingsbridge, she says they are keen to support CLTs: "We know affordable housing is a huge issue here in the South Hams, but our residents can be reassured that we are doing everything in our power to ease the housing crisis locally."

For Clay Park, Transition Homes teamed up with not-for-profit housing association Aster Housing Group, which reinvests income into developing affordable homes.

Jane Gallifent, director of development at Aster, says "kickstart funding" is important so CLT projects are "viable, sustainable and deliverable".

The need for more affordable housing is urgent, adds Stuart Francis-Dubois - strategic lead at Shelter Plymouth.

He describes a "chronic shortage of social homes" for those "trapped" on waiting lists across the South West.

Meanwhile, Joanna and her family say they long for stability: "There are a lot of people like us.

"It's really important to me to provide our kids with a safe home and a sense of consistency, that they're in a safe environment. It's worrying if you feel that you don't know how you will continue to do that."

A home at Clay Park, she says, would be "an enormous gift, an enormous relief".

Additional reporting by Jonathan Fagg and Lauren Woodhead.

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