Luton has the East of England's longest wait times for family social homes

The growing wait times for a three-bedroom social home have been called a "national scandal", with the national waiting list increasing by over a third in a decade.

New data compiled by the National Housing Federation, Crisis and Shelter shows the average wait for a three-bed social home in Luton is now 42.1 years.

The figures were generated from the average annual wait time from 2021-22 to 2023-24.

They assume no new additions to the waiting list and are calculated on how many years it would take to clear the backlog at the average rate of lettings.

Matt Downie, chief executive of homelessness charity Crisis, said: "It’s ludicrous that in some areas of the country the wait for a social home is more than average life expectancy."

"Government must commit to building social housing at scale and provide the necessary investment so that we can create a stronger society where everyone has the foundation of a safe home," he added.

The number of families on waiting lists in England has increased by 37 per cent since 2015, six times the rate of the waiting list overall.

In 32 local authorities, the wait is now longer than an entire childhood (at least 18 years), with the worst three councils, all in London, having waiting lists over a hundred years.

The groups behind the study say waiting lists have been increasing due to a "chronic shortage" of social homes.

According to the new analysis, Luton is ranked 11th longest out of 290 local authority areas in England for waiting times for these homes.

A Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "The findings of this report highlight the scale and devastating impact of the social housing crisis we’ve inherited.

"We’re taking urgent action to fix this through our Plan for Change, injecting £2 billion to help deliver the biggest boost in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation, investing in homelessness services, and bringing forward overdue reforms to the Right to Buy scheme that will protect the stock of existing social housing."