Mid Sussex has 122 households in temporary accommodation, up from 105 a year ago, and 54 of them have children. Cabinet sees the figures on Monday.
Mid Sussex District Council was housing 122 households in temporary accommodation at the end of June, up from 105 at the same point last year. Fifty-four of them are households with children.
The figures are in the council’s own Budget Management report for the first quarter of 2026/27, which goes to Cabinet at 1pm on Monday 14 September. The report names temporary accommodation demand as one of two “emerging service pressures” facing the council. The other is affordable housing delivery.
What the numbers show
Comparing the April to June quarter with the same quarter a year earlier:
- Households in temporary accommodation at the period end: up from 105 to 122.
- Households in accommodation paid for on a nightly basis, the most expensive kind: up from 64 to 77.
- Households there for more than six months: up from 32 to 35.
- Households with children: up from 52 to 54.
Prevention is going the other way. The council prevented homelessness within 56 days for 32 households this quarter, against 40 in the same quarter last year. It relieved homelessness for 36, against 37.
What the council says it is doing
The report says the Housing Options service “continues to operate in a challenging and high-demand environment” but is forecasting a breakeven position for the year. It lists four responses:
- upstream homelessness prevention work and earlier intervention
- the purchase of four properties under the government’s Local Authority Housing Fund
- a planned team restructure, with targeted training
- action on recruitment, in what the report calls a sector where specialist housing skills are “increasingly difficult to secure”
It also flags two pressures it cannot control. Bringing the Home-Move service in house and continuing demand for temporary accommodation are both adding cost, and the report says the Renters’ Rights Act may further affect access to private rented housing.
The council has set aside £3.179m for temporary accommodation in this year’s capital programme, revised up from an original budget of £2m.
Fewer affordable homes finished
The second pressure the report names is affordable housing. The number of new affordable homes delivered in the district fell from 58 in the first quarter of last year to 35 this year. Over the whole of 2025/26 the figure was 373.
The report is careful about why. These homes are built by private developers, and the report says the timing of delivery is affected by weather, raw material supply and the developers’ own commercial interest. One quarter is not a trend.
The money
The council is forecasting an underspend of £20k for the year against a net revenue budget of £24.124m. Service budgets are forecast to break even exactly; the £20k sits in centrally held contingency.
Its investments have done better than planned. Treasury management produced £430k more than budgeted in the quarter, after the £340k already committed to the medium term financial plan and the cost of running the service. Officers propose splitting it:
| Where the £430k goes | Amount |
|---|---|
| Project and Efficiency reserve, for reorganisation and joint venture costs | £215k |
| General Reserve | £215k |
The report is blunt about why that matters. Prudent management is “even more necessary after the outcome of the Final Local Government Settlement, which created a significant deficit for the Council from 2027/28 onwards”.
What else is in the report
- Council tax collection is ahead of schedule at 28.5% for the quarter against a 23.8% target, on the way to a 95% full-year target. Business rates collection reached 30%.
- Recycling hit 61.2% of household waste, against the council’s 60% target and a West Sussex countywide benchmark of 53.7%. We covered the six month review of the bin service last week.
- Missed bin collections ran at 541 per 100,000 in the quarter, against 92 in the same quarter last year. The report notes the service now makes about 7.5 million collections a year, up around 74% on the 4.3 million before the new rounds started.
- Freedom of information requests rose from 172 to 214, up 20% year on year, and 94% were answered within the statutory 20 working days against a 100% target. That is up from 80.9% at the end of last year.
- Abandoned vehicles: 65% of cases were resolved within seven days against a 95% target, which the report attributes partly to the reporting system moving to East Sussex County Council for the whole of Sussex.
- Leisure centre visits rose from 364,868 to 417,024 in the quarter.
- Cyber attacks prevented: 4,949, a new indicator this year.
What it means for you
- If you are at risk of losing your home, the council’s stated priority is prevention, and its own figures show it acting earlier. Contact Housing Options through Mid Sussex District Council rather than waiting until you have to leave.
- The meeting is public. Cabinet meets at 1pm on Monday 14 September in the Council Chamber at Oaklands, Haywards Heath. The agenda and both reports are on the council’s committee site.
- The financial warning is for next year, not this one. The council expects to finish 2026/27 roughly on budget. The deficit it is bracing for starts in 2027/28.
Also on Monday’s agenda is a progress update on the Serco waste contract. The current contract runs to 31 July 2028, and in July Cabinet delegated authority to negotiate a five-year extension. The September report contains no figures: it says negotiations began in July, that workstreams are running on value for money, service improvements, investment and legal matters, and that if satisfactory terms cannot be reached the council would have to consider a full reprocurement instead.
Sources
- Mid Sussex District Council, Budget Management 2026/27 Q1, Cabinet 14 September 2026
- Mid Sussex District Council, Extension of Waste Management Contract, Progress Update, Cabinet 14 September 2026
- Mid Sussex District Council, Cabinet agenda, 14 September 2026
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