Council housing
How hard is it to get a council house?
Loading council housing figures from Leeds City Council…
The queue for every front door
The average number of households bidding on each advertised council home. Anyone on the housing register can bid on homes through Leeds Homes; this is the clearest single measure of how far demand outstrips supply.
Fewer homes come up at all
How many council homes were advertised for letting each year. Fewer vacancies means fewer chances to bid — the other half of why the queues above keep growing.
A shrinking stock
The council's total housing stock at the end of each financial year. Right-to-buy sales and demolitions have removed more homes than new building has added in every year on record here.
Where the competition is fiercest
Average bids per advertised home by ward. Inner-city wards see the longest queues; the outer suburbs the shortest — but nowhere in Leeds is a council home easy to get.
Family homes are the scarcest
Average bids by property size. Three-bed family homes rarely come up — when they do, the queue is the longest of all.
What the council actually owns
The tenanted stock by property type. Just over half is houses; flats — including the city's high-rise blocks — make up most of the rest.
Sources: Council house bids, Number of council houses and Tenanted housing stock on Datamillnorth, published by Leeds City Council. Last updated —.
"Bids" are expressions of interest through the Leeds Homes lettings system — one household can bid on many homes, so bids measure competition, not the number of people waiting. The 2015 and 2017 files look incomplete at source, so those years' advertised-homes counts are low. Ward boundaries changed in 2018 and older files use the old wards, so the by-ward chart covers recent years only; the citywide trend uses everything. The stock trend counts all council dwellings; sheltered and extra-care homes are included throughout.