A BLEAK assessment of the prospects for social and affordable housing in Rebridge was outlined to councillors last night.

There are more than 12,000 people registered as seeking social housing in the borough but there were just 380 new lets in the past year, and very few of those were family sized homes.

The council has set itself what it admits is a huge target of 1,400 new homes over the next three years but one that depends on generating £81 million through the sale of land and through grants.

Chief Housing officer Lisa Marston told councillors: "We're nowhere near meeting that target at the moment and we're not optimistic.

"It's been estimated that we need an extra 1,400 homes over those years and that will not address the backlog. It's just what we think at a stretch may be achievable in these three years taking a very very optimistic view of what we might achieve."

Redbridge has the second lowest number of council houses out of the 32 London boroughs but even on this faces a £39 million backlog of repairs.

At a meeting of the council's capital programme corporate panel, Cllr Robin Turbefield said: "Surely we can't one day just say oh we've got to repair all our houses because they are living in absolute squalor'? And why are we still selling council houses when we only get 25 per cent of the receipts?"

He was told that the backlog of repairs had been a growing problem for years and that the council was obliged by the Government to make council homes available for sale.

Mrs Marston said: "Nearly all the kitchens and bathrooms in our housing stock need replacing to meet the decent homes target."

She added that the current target would see kitchens replaced only every 20 years and bathrooms every 30.