Haringey Council has come under fire for its hidden housing waiting list. Correspondence to local MP Lynne Featherstone from Haringey Council officials has revealed that over 1,400 housing applications are waiting to be processed before even getting on to the housing register. This is in addition to the 25,000 people waiting on the official housing register itself.

Recent figures have shown that the number of people on Haringey Council’s housing register has leapt by 10,000 in 2003-6. Haringey’s Liberal Democrats have pointed to Haringey Council’s own admission that the promise for 1,000 new homes in Haringey is not enough to quell the surge in demand and have criticised Labour’s failings to bring the figures under control even before the missing 1,400 are taken into account.

Lynne Featherstone MP comments:

“On top of the thousands of people already on the growing official register, we discover another 1,400 who are waiting simply to wait. Labour’s policy on housing is completely out of control and it is the people who are desperately in need of a permanent roof over their heads who are suffering.”

Councillor Catherine Harris, Haringey Lib Dem Housing Spokesperson, adds:

“Broken manifesto promises on decent homes, a hundred years to be housed and now this hidden waiting list – failure is too soft a word for Haringey Labour’s housing fiasco.”