Richmond Housing Register Rules: Have Your Say by 18 January

Richmond Council has opened its consultation on new rules for handing out social housing. It runs until 18 January 2027. You do not need to be on the housing register to respond.

The rules are the council’s Housing Allocation Scheme. It decides who can join the register, how priority is worked out and how homes are offered. The consultation page says the current scheme was last updated in 2016. It opened on 22 October, and the council announced it today.

We reported in September that this was coming, when a council committee noted the proposals and set aside £150,000 for the work. These are now the formal proposals.

The five proposals

The council sets out five changes, each with a worked example:

1. Keep your place if you find your own private rented home. At the moment a homeless household in temporary accommodation can lose its place on the register by moving into private renting. The council proposes letting them keep the registration date and band they would have had.
2. A new residency rule. Today you must have lived in the borough for three years in a row. The proposal is five years out of the last seven, living in the borough when you apply. Safeguards are proposed for people fleeing domestic abuse, some care leavers, former Armed Forces applicants and people who cannot safely return to another area.
3. Bidding for some homes. At present the council matches the household with the highest need and longest wait to the first suitable home. Under choice-based letting, transfer tenants, direct applicants and homeless households who move into private renting could bid for advertised homes that fit their needs. Households staying in temporary accommodation would still be matched directly.
4. One-bedroom flats for some single homeless people. Most are now considered only for studios. Studios would still go first to single people in temporary accommodation.
5. Band A for every tenant who downsizes. The top band now goes only to tenants who free up two or more bedrooms. The proposal gives Band A for freeing up one, with 25 extra points for each bedroom released.

What the council says it will not do

It is candid about the limits. “The proposed changes to the Housing Allocations Scheme would not create more social housing,” the consultation page says. Waiting times “are still likely to be very lengthy”.

It also says some people will gain priority and others will lose it. On the residency rule, it warns that five years out of seven “may be more difficult to meet for some recently arrived eligible migrants and refugees”. Its equality impact assessment covers who may be affected.

Councillor Chris Varley, the council’s lead member for housing, said the changes “will not directly create more homes”, and that the council would keep pushing for more housing supply alongside the review.

What it means for you

• If you are on the register and have lived elsewhere for a while, the residency change could help you. The council’s example is a woman with 18 years in the borough whose application lapsed after eight months caring for her mother on the south coast.
• If you live in temporary accommodation, proposal 1 means moving into a private let would no longer cost you your place.
• If you are a council or housing association tenant in a home too big for you, downsizing by one bedroom would get the top band.
• If you are newly arrived in the borough, the longer residency test could make it harder to qualify.

How to respond

• Online: the survey is open until 18 January 2027.
• On paper or in another format: email consultation@richmond.gov.uk or call 020 8891 1411, quoting “Richmond Housing Allocation Scheme Consultation”.
• In person: two identical meetings at York House, Richmond Road, Twickenham, on Thursday 5 November, from 3.30pm to 5pm and from 6pm to 7.30pm. Places are limited, so book on Eventbrite and attend only one.

The council expects to publish the findings, and how they shaped the final scheme, in spring 2027.