MORE THAN 3,100 people are on the waiting list for a council home in York, The Press has learned.

Figures released by City of York Council show 2,459 non-council tenants are on the list, as well as another 624 existing council tenants who want to move properties, and 78 accepted homeless cases.

The authority, which has 8,000 homes, currently has 62 empty properties, which are in the process of being let. The data reveals that, between April 2006 and March 31 last year, the number of homes being let fell.

Between April 1, 2006, and March 31 the following year, the council let 625 properties, but that figure for the same period in 2007/8 was 522.

Since April 1 last year, the authority has let 310 homes. During 2005/6, it let 597 dwellings.

Coun David Horton, the council’s shadow housing spokesman, said if the authority’s current performance continued, by March 31 it would have let 413 properties.

“That is 20 per cent off on the 07/08 figure of 522 which in itself was down about 20 per cent on the 06/07 figure,” he said.

“I appreciate the number of properties is reducing, but it’s not reducing to the extent that the lets are reducing.

“It just indicates the poor performance by the executive member in charge of the department, because they’re failing to improve on their performance – in fact their performance is going downwards.”

But Coun Sue Galloway, the authority’s executive member for housing and adult social services, said York was in the top quarter of authorities for re-let times, taking an average of about 17.5 days to re-let vacant properties.

She said the figure for last year was 19.37 days.

She said that, over the last three years, tenants had been staying in their council homes for longer, as opposed to moving out, because they were buying their own property, for example.

“So there’s been a reduction in the number of council properties that we’ve had available to let,” she said.

“That isn’t because we’ve been selling council houses, because we haven’t sold any this year at all. There’s been a reduction in turn over in effect.

“And it’s also true to say now that registered social landlords are actually having difficulty selling properties that they may have in other parts of the country in a bid to finance any further building elsewhere, so the whole thing is coming to a grinding halt. So even registered social landlords are now having difficulty actually building properties.” She pointed out that the properties the council let were the only ones it had available.

“The performance can’t improve if we don’t have the number of properties,” she said.