Families needing a five-bed council home in Milton Keynes wait 7 years 9 months, and there are no six-bed homes. The council plans to spend £2.5m buying some.

A family in Milton Keynes that needs a five-bedroom council or housing association home waits 7 years and 9 months on average. For a family that needs six bedrooms, there is no record of a single let at all, because the council owns no six-bedroom homes.

The figures are in a council report asking to spend £2.5 million buying larger family homes on the open market. The proposal went to the Delegated Decisions meeting on Tuesday 15 September. When we checked on 16 September, the decision record had not been published.

The council’s press release on 7 September announced the £2.5m. It did not give the waiting times.

How long larger families wait

The waiting list figures are in an annex to the report. They count lets of both council homes and housing association homes over the past 12 months.

Families waiting, and homes let in a year Milton Keynes housing register, larger homes, July 2026 Families waiting Lets, past 12 months 4 bedrooms Average wait: 5 years 189 50 5 bedrooms Average wait: 7 years 9 months 32 2 6 bedrooms No lets on record 3 0 Source: Milton Keynes City Council, Current Housing Needs annex, Delegated Decisions, 15 September 2026. Lets include housing associations. Graphic by MK Daily
Waiting families against homes actually let, by size. Graphic by MK Daily.
  • Four bedrooms: 189 families waiting, 50 lets in a year, average wait 5 years.
  • Five bedrooms: 32 families waiting, 2 lets in a year, average wait 7 years 9 months.
  • Six bedrooms: 3 families waiting, no lets, and none on record.

The annex is blunt about the six-bed families. “Without acquiring stock, these families are unlikely to be housed,” it says.

The council owns 41 five-bedroom homes for general needs and one seven-bedroom home, the report says. It has no six-bedroom homes at all.

956 households in temporary accommodation

The council was housing 956 households in temporary accommodation in July 2026. The report says that number has stayed “relatively stable”. Most need smaller homes, but 76 need four bedrooms or more.

Households in temporary accommodation in Milton Keynes, by size of home needed, July 2026
Home neededHouseholds
1 bedroom365
2 bedrooms230
3 bedrooms285
4 bedrooms65
5 bedrooms9
6 bedrooms2
Total956

The report also gives a reason for recent pressure. It says the “forthcoming” Renters’ Rights Act “has encouraged some private landlords to leave the sector”, and that this has pushed up the number of people coming to the council as homeless.

What £2.5m buys

The money comes from Right to Buy receipts, the cash the council gets when tenants buy their council homes. The rules say those receipts must be spent on replacement affordable housing within five years, or part of the money goes back to the government.

The report says homes of this size “can often cost more than £0.500m on the open market”. At that price, £2.5m would buy about five. It gives the Director of Environment and Property power to choose how many homes to buy, where and of what type, including single purchases above £500,000.

The homes would be let as affordable rented council housing, under the normal allocations policy. The report says the council will not suspend that policy to let them.

On timing, the report’s timetable has the search for homes starting in September 2026. Its finance section expects the purchases to complete in “late 2026/27 early 2027/28”, given the state of the housing market.

Why the council is not building them

Building is too slow, the report says. A new council housing scheme takes four to five years from planning to move-in. The council has two recent examples:

  • Lakes Estate, Bletchley: 183 new council homes, the last finished in April 2026 and all now occupied
  • Acre Lodge: 66 council homes under construction, due in 2028, including some four and five bed houses

The annex also explains why housing associations and developers rarely supply big homes. Grant is usually paid per home regardless of size. Local Housing Allowance, the cap on housing benefit for rent, stops at four bedrooms, so the rent on a bigger home cannot be covered.

Ed Hume, the cabinet member for housing, said in the press release that the purchase “will only meet a small part of the demand for housing in our city”.

The Lakes Estate programme is also behind this week’s other housing decision, the £6.3m demolition of Serpentine Court.

What it means for you

  • If you are on the register for a four-bed home or bigger, the average wait is at least five years. Check your banding and bedroom need are up to date, because homes bought under this plan are let through the normal allocations policy.
  • If you are in temporary accommodation and need a larger home, these purchases are aimed at families like yours, but £2.5m buys only a handful of homes.
  • If you are a private tenant served notice, contact the council’s housing options team as soon as you get it. The council has a legal duty to try to prevent homelessness when someone is threatened with it within 56 days.

Sources