Council chiefs want to secure new temporary accommodation for homeless people – as the money spent on B&Bs has risen to more than half a million pounds a year.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has become increasingly reliant on using hotels and B&Bs as short-term accommodation due to a rise in homelessness over the last few years.

But the council says B&Bs provide an 'unsatisfactory environment', especially for families with children, and only part of the cost can be covered by housing benefit, meaning local taxpayers have to meet the shortfall. The net cost to the council for B&B accommodation increased from £90,873 in 2017/18 to £564,978 last year.

And there have also been issues with anti-social behaviour at hotels being used as homeless accommodation – earlier this year more than 500 people signed a petition calling on the council to stop using the Sneyd Arm in Tunstall, which had been linked to a spate of crime in the town centre.

The council is now looking to sign up providers of nightly paid accommodation to a new framework, which it will be able to use at short-notice, as and when needed. Council leaders believe this will provide more appropriate accommodation for homeless people at lower cost than hotels.

The council says B&Bs provide an 'unsatisfactory environment' (Nub News).

Councillor Chris Robinson, cabinet member for planning and housing, said: "The council will also have more control over where people are placed as well. Many of the people we put into hotels don't cause any problems at all, but there are some with complex needs who can attract others from elsewhere who do cause trouble in the local areas, which has an impact on local residents. So the new framework will give us more control over this.

"The cost of using hotels and B&Bs has spiralled over the last few years. It was only ever meant to be a short-term fix, but it's become normalised now."

Local authorities have a legal duty to assist people facing homelessness, and the city council currently meets this duty using hotel accommodation and its own homeless units. The council has increased its homeless units from 28 to 40, but this has meant taking family homes out of the general housing stock at a time of increasing demand for social housing.

In 2023/24, the council placed 846 households into hotels, including 203 families with children, with the average stay lasting 16 nights. Due to the lack of more appropriate accommodation, the council has recently had to keep some families in B&Bs for longer than six weeks, in breach of national guidance.

A cabinet report states: "It is also recognised that B&B accommodation is an unsatisfactory environment for any household for any length of time due to the lack of privacy, inadequate facilities for the preparation and cooking of food and sharing of amenities. The impact on children is even more significant with poor outcomes recorded for physical and mental health, cognitive and physical development, academic attainment and school attendance and opportunities in adulthood."

Nightly paid accommodation can take the form of self-contained units or houses in multiple occupation provided by specialist landlords. According to the report, using this form of accommodation has allowed some councils to 'virtually end their reliance on B&Bs'.

Cabinet member will be asked to approve the tender for the new framework when they meet next Tuesday. The council says it has already been approached by three providers, so leaders are confident that there will be sufficient local interest in the tender.

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READ MORE: Council reveals how it will spend £20m levelling up cash in Stoke-on-Trent

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