A council spent millions of pounds to house people in temporary accommodation.

The number of those living in temporary accommodation in Brighton is on the rise, with hundreds of households staying in provisional premises, which is costing Brighton and Hove City Council more than £4m a year.

Figures obtained through a freedom of information request by Personal Injury Claims UK found that in 2023/24, 1,770 people have been living in temporary accommodation in the city.

Temporary accommodation is the term used to describe accommodation secured by a local housing authority under their statutory homelessness functions.

The data comes in light of the news that, across the UK, the number of homeless people in local authority-provided temporary accommodation rose to record levels.

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In 2023, 109,000 households in England, including 142,000 children, were in emergency housing between June and September, up ten per cent on the same period the previous year.

Back in 2021/22, the number of people staying in temporary accommodation in Brighton stood at 1,859.

A year later, this number decreased to 1,791, which is the second-highest number of people living in temporary accommodation in the past three years.

Over 2023/24 the city had a drop in the number to1,770.

When local authorities run out of immediate space in specific temporary accommodation premises, other types of accommodation are used to house people such as hotels and bed and breakfasts.

Hotels are one of the main forms of temporary accommodation and across England in the past year, 50,546 people lived in hotel accommodation, up ten per cent from the previous year.

With the number of temporary accommodation residents increasing significantly in recent years, so has the cost, with local authorities having to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds.

In addition, the short-term rental market, such as Airbnb, has reduced the number of properties that councils can use.

In 2021/22, it cost Brighton Council £4,182,712 before this figure decreased to £3,761,645 a year later.

The cost then jumped to £4,033,606 in 2023/24, with households being placed in more expensive properties.

In England, councils spent more than £1 billion on temporary accommodation last year, and the problem is pushing some local authorities towards bankruptcy.