Affordable rental home in Lewisham have nearly halved in just seven years, more than doubling the number of homeless families in temporary accommodation in the borough.

In 2010/2011 there were 1,890 affordable rental lets, with 920 households in temporary accommodation.

Projected affordable rentals for 2017/2018 are 1,147 with 1,959 homeless families in temporary accommodation.

Lewisham Council strategic housing head Genevieve Macklin said it was becoming increasingly difficult for people to access affordable rented lets, which are set at 80 per cent of market value.

She said: “We haven’t got enough lets for the homeless, and we are trying to divide that up between the homeless and the rest of the housing register, so it impacts on people’s ability to get a house.”

An average of 241 families will bid for a three-bedroom home per week through Homesearch, the council’s online site for allocating social housing, officer Nina Morris said.

She said: “We get anywhere from 12 properties in a week to 25 to 26 properties in a week. Generally you’ve got twos [two-bedroom accommodation] and threes [three bedroom accommodation] in there but sometimes only one three-bed in there, so it is slim pickings.”

Eighty per cent of two-bed accommodation and 70 per cent of three-bed accommodation went to priority homeless households, which didn’t leave many options for other households on the housing register, Ms Macklin said.

She said: “The number of households on the register that need a two or three-bed way, way, way exceeds the number that become available.”

Ms Morris said there were just over 4,000 households waiting for two-bed accommodation, 1,000 of which were homeless and in temporary accommodation.

Most of the homeless acceptances were single parents with children, but problems were arising with families who did not want to leave temporary accommodation, Ms Macklin said.

She said: “We are now discovering some of our households have been in nightly paid accommodation for over a year and not bidding because they are in a self-contained, quite a good standard property, and they are enjoying where they’re living, and what they see come up as available isn’t necessarily where they want to be or what they want to have – it’s a flat in an estate as opposed to a two-bed house – so they don’t bid, and then it’s expensive where they are currently living so we can then say, ‘well if you are not bidding, we will bid for you.'”

The council was working to improve the experience of Homesearch users, including making it clear when applicants needed to submit more information, Ms Macklin said.

She said: “We are in the process of developing a specification to go out to procurement. It is not going to happen until may or June but it is on our radar.”