Reading council has responded to news that revealed dozens of homeless households from Oxford have been moved into the town.
Reading council has reacted to recent news revealing that numerous homeless families from Oxford have been relocated to the town.
Local authorities are obligated to assist individuals who present as homeless, providing emergency or temporary accommodation until a long-term housing solution is found.
Unfortunately, if a council can't provide temporary accommodation locally, families may be moved to other areas.
A Freedom of Information request recently showed that 34 households from Oxford City were placed in temporary accommodation within Reading in 2024/25.
The same request revealed that 45 households were sent to High Wycombe, while two went to Slough.
This raised concerns, especially since Reading Borough has its own homelessness challenges, with council data indicating a rise in homeless households. By the end of March 2025, 402 households were utilising temporary accommodation, an 18% increase from the previous year, with a large fraction of these families having children.
Questions were posed to Reading Council regarding any support received from Oxford City to ease the burden of accommodating these households.
A spokesperson assured that the council’s priority is to care for local individuals in need and clarified that they do not assist other councils in finding hotel accommodation.
They stated, "Any out of area hotel accommodation sourced by other local authorities is a direct arrangement between them and the private hotel provider. Our only involvement is to be notified as the host authority."
The council's expenditure on temporary accommodation for 2024/25 is currently unknown, but they spent around £2.8 million in 2023/24, totalling nearly £5.2 million over the past three years.
In the last count, Reading council identified 57 people sleeping rough in the area as of November last year.
James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter
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