The waiting list for a council house or flat in Swindon has doubled in three years.

And Swindon Borough Council will be looking to prioritise longer-term residents and those working in the borough for housing to try and make the allocation of scarce housing fairer.

A report to the council’s adults’ health, care and housing overview and scrutiny committee, which should have been discussed this week before the meeting was postponed for national mourning, has been written by Euclid Street’s director of housing Mike Ash.

In it, Mr Ash says: “There are currently over 6,700 households on the allocation scheme, compared with 3,168 in 2019. The number of re-lets last year was 556 demonstrating that demand far outweighs supply. “

To address the difficulty in meeting the demand for housing, the council’s housing department is proposing to changes the rules on eligibility – introducing a minimum residency period.

Mr Ash’ report says: “For this reason, it is proposed to have a stronger local connection criteria, in particular: applicants must have lived in Swindon Borough continuously for the last three years; or have lived in Swindon Borough for three years out of a consecutive five years; or are currently employed, for the last 12 months, within the Swindon Borough, for 16 or more hours per week.”

Mr Ash also proposes doubling the banding priorities from two to four, he says it will allow allocations to better need people’s needs: “This will enable urgent and less urgent applications to be processed in a fairer and more transparent way.”

It will also mean that if a family refuses what is deemed a “reasonable offer of housing, they may be removed from the list: “Households will also not be allowed to refuse a reasonable offer of accommodation, if they do so they will be removed from the list, enabling those in serious and immediate need of housing greater opportunity to be housed in a more timely way.

The Conservative-run borough council is halfway through building 149 social and affordable houses and flats on Queens Road, on the cleared site of old sheltered housing blocks.

It has also begun a programme of small  areas of fewer than 10 homes  per development of accessible bungalows and houses for social rent

The Swindon Labour group of councillors has previously said it would start a programme of building 1,000 new council homes for social rent if it took power in Euclid Street.