Lancashire Census 2021: recently revealed census results show housing trends across Preston, Chorley and South Ribble

Tenure (whether a building is owned or rented)

The statistics reveal that less people in Preston own their own home compared to the rest of the UK, whilst more own their home in Chorley and even more do in South Ribble.

In Preston, 35,254 people (59.2 per cent) own their home outright or with a mortgage/loan/shared partnership, 10,983 (18.4 per cent) are in social renting and 13,370 (22.4 per cent) privately rent or rent for free.

Homeownership is greater in both Chorley and South Ribble, where 72.8 per cent and 76.8 per cent respectively own their home outright or with a mortgage/loan/shared partnership.

Meanwhile 13.2 per cent of people in Chorley are in social renting and 13.9 per cent privately rent or rent for free, and in South Ribble, 10.4 per cent of are in social renting and 12.8 per cent privately rent or rent for free.

Overall looking at security of tenure in terms of the proportion of tenants versus owner-occupiers, Preston has a lower security, whilst Chorley and South Ribble have higher security, compared to the North West and England.

In the North West 63% own their home outright or with a mortgage/loan/shared partnership, 17.6 per cent are in social renting and 19.4 per cent privately rent or rent for free, whilst in England, the figures are 62.3 per cent, 17.1 per cent and 20.6 per cent respectively.

Signifance of tenure figures

Housing charity Shelter warned that yesterday’s Census figures reveal that the country’s chronic shortage of genuinely affordable homes is forcing households into an unaffordable and unfit private rented sector.

Polly Neate, Chief Executive of Shelter, said: “Predictably the number of private rented households in England has skyrocketed since 2011. Despite this, regulation of the sector stagnates. Every day our emergency helpline hears from private renters paying through the nose for damp, mouldy homes, and families too scared to complain for fear they’ll be kicked out.

“To make sure private renting is fit for purpose, the government must keep its promise of introducing a Renters’ Reform Bill this year that will scrap ‘no fault’ evictions and bring in a national landlord register.

“Meanwhile more than a million households are stuck on social housing waiting lists across England, yet each year the government’s failure to prioritise housing means we’re losing more social housing through sales and demolition than we build.

“The only lasting solution to our housing emergency is building more social homes. It’s time for the government to invest in a new generation of good quality social homes with genuinely affordable rents pegged to local incomes.”

Different sized homes

The census also looked at how many rooms people’s homes had – with rooms excluding bathrooms, halls/landings, kitchens, conservatories or utility rooms – and the results showed notable disparaties across Preston, Chorley, South Ribble and the wider country.

In Preston, the most common number of rooms to have was four, with 34.61 per cent, whilst only 0.92 per cent had one room, and 11.84 per cent had six or more.

Having four rooms was also most common in Chorley with 36.81 per cent, whilst less people than in Preston had only one room (0.15 per cent) and more had 6 plus (15.26 per cent).

Compared to Chorley, it was a very similar picture in South Ribble, where 37.05 per cent had four rooms , 0.23 per cent had only one room and 14.23 per cent had six or more on.

In comparison, more people in both Preston, Chorley and South Ribble had four rooms than in the North West (30.41 per cent), and England (27.8 per cent), where it was still the most common number of rooms to have.

When it came to the smallest number of rooms, there were less one room properties in Chorley and South Ribble compared to both the North West (0.56 per cent) and England (1.09 per cent), with Preston sitting in between these two numbers.

Preston sat behind both the North West and England when it came to having six plus rooms, with the North West’s 13.3 per cent being topped by the numbers for Chorley and South Ribble, and England’s 14.9 per cent only being topped by Chorley.

The survey also covered accommodation type, room occupancy rating, central heating and car or van availability but the published data for these categories only looked at a national or regional level.

To see the full published results from the ‘Housing, England and Wales: Census 2021’ release, click here.