£8m spent on temporary accommodation amid rising homelessness pressure

Nicholas Thomas, Local Democracy Reporter

A councillor has warned decision-makers must make a “credible plan” to deal with homelessness pressures, after it emerged the local authority spent more than £8 million on temporary accommodation last year.

Cllr Nigel Dix, who leads the Caerphilly council’s independents, said such spending was “unsustainable” and the Labour-run authority’s “failure” to tackle homelessness was “a tragedy”.

Figures he obtained via a Freedom of Information request showed there were more than 6,700 people on the council’s waiting list for housing at the start of 2026, and the average wait recorded last year was 767 days.

According to those figures, 965 applicants have been on the waiting list for more than five years.

The council has placed 47 households in temporary accommodation, as of this February, with a further 11 households registered as rough-sleepers waiting for a place.

“Labour has no credible plan to deal with homelessness, cut the waiting list and reduce spending on [hotels] and B&Bs,” said Cllr Dix. “The public will be rightly shocked.”

The council was invited to respond to his claims.

Housing Committee 

Earlier this week, Caerphilly County Borough Council’s housing committee heard homelessness pressures are a “national issue” in which the rising cost of living meant officers were “unfortunately seeing an increase” in demand.

Director of housing, Nick Taylor-Williams, said councils had a statutory duty to support people facing homelessness, which in some cases in England had caused “significant” financial issues for local authorities.

“It’s not just about finance, the most important thing is about those that are experiencing homelessness and looking to address that,” he added.

The committee heard how the council had added homelessness pressures to its wider programme of service transformation – a long-term project designed to make the council more efficient amid a gloomy budget situation.

Caerphilly would also learn from other councils on how best to address homelessness, Mr Taylor-Williams added.

Cllr Shayne Cook, the cabinet member for housing, told the committee Caerphilly Council had “done a lot of work in a short period of time”, including bringing more than 400 empty homes back into use.

The council had also introduced a low-cost home ownership policy, brought in new Leasing Scheme Wales policies, and completed a new local housing market assessment and rapid rehousing transition plan, he added.