SOUTHEND Council has shed nearly 4,000 people from its housing waiting list in the past 12 months.
The authority had around 5,400 people on its waiting list for a council house this time last year. The current figure is almost a quarter of that, at 1,458.
Changes in legislation have allowed the council to remove thousands from the queue.
The Localism Act toughened up restrictions on who can join a council’s housing waiting list, which came into force in Southend last April.
Before, anyone could join the register to apply for a council house regardless of where they came from in the country or if they already had a home.
Now people deemed to already be in “adequate housing” are barred.
There are four priority bands, A to D, with the latter having the lowest need. There are now 294 people in band D and 225 given the greatest priority in A and B.
A council spokesman said: “This followed the introduction of the Localism Act 2011, which gave us the power to take groups of applicants out of the housing registers. In 2011 band D broadly contained applicants deemed to be adequately housed. Now, people in this category are not eligible for our register and band D is instead predominately for people with a housing need but no local connection.”
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