100 Years on the Waiting List: Who Needs a Home When You’ve Got Character Building?

100 Years on the Waiting List: Who Needs a Home When You’ve Got Character Building?

By Ian Croasdell, Your Favourite Satirical Handyman Blogger

Well, well, well. Turns out if you want a family-sized social home in London, you better have the patience of a saint and the lifespan of a Galápagos tortoise on multivitamins.

Yes, apparently, waiting over a century for a council house is the new normal. Move over Amazon Prime, because the British housing system just reinvented the concept of slow delivery. You'll get your home eventually—right around the time your great-grandkids are trying to holographically download it through a quantum lease agreement.

But let’s not panic, folks! After all, what’s a 100-year wait in the grand scheme of eternity? If anything, this is an excellent opportunity for a lesson in intergenerational hope. Imagine passing down your housing application like a cherished family heirloom:

"Son, one day this sacred PDF will be yours. Treasure it. Keep it dry. The council might call any day now—only 74 years to go!"

Meanwhile, developers are busy churning out luxury flats faster than you can say "Help to Buy." Fancy a £1.2 million shoebox with views of a skip and a shared gym that smells like regret? Step right up! But dare to ask for a modest three-bed council house with a garden for your kids? Well now, slow down there, comrade. That kind of thinking smells dangerously like affordable living.

Let’s be honest: We’ve got enough homes… just not for you. We’ve got shiny glass towers for investors, offshore landlords, and the occasional Bond villain. But for working families? Nah. Go rent a broom cupboard in Zone 5 for £1,800 a month. And consider yourself lucky it doesn’t come with a live-in rat named Clive.

The market will fix it, they say. You know, like it fixed Blockbuster, MySpace, and Woolworths.

In fairness, the government has pledged to build 1.5 million homes, which is brilliant if you love counting announcements as actual bricks. Because here in Britain, "pledge" is Latin for "we hope you forget about this by next Tuesday."

Let’s not even start on the planning system, which is so backwards, it makes dial-up internet look efficient. Want to convert an abandoned shoe shop into flats? That’ll take six years, a sacrificial goat, and approval from the Council of Elders.

The real solution? Radical reform, or as the political class calls it: “a great way to lose the next election.”

So what’s left?

Crowdfund your own housing estate?

Start a commune with 37 strangers and a shared bathroom?

Apply to be on Grand Designs and hope Kevin McCloud is feeling generous?

Or maybe just keep your chin up and your flatpack furniture ready for 2125.

Because at this rate, the only thing more reliable than the housing waitlist… is the pothole outside your nan’s house that’s now old enough to vote.