Green-led Stroud District Council is one of the largest council house builders in the whole of England, it has been revealed.
Only three other councils in the country – Leeds, Basildon and Harlow – started more homes in 2024/25 (the date for which the latest data is available) than Stroud started in 2025/26. Stroud is building more council houses than even much larger councils like Westminster, Liverpool and Manchester.
The council started building 51 new homes last year – compared with 80 in the whole of London. It is also directly acquiring from builders more than 100 new-build homes that would otherwise be rented out or sold, at market rates.
Stroud’s 2025/26 housing starts mean that it is in the top 10 local authorities in England for house building. It is building more homes than everyunitary authority built last year, higher than Birmingham, Merseyside, and Tyne and Wear, despite them having a combined population of 3.8 million people, compared with 126,000 in Stroud District.
There are approximately 3,000 people on the waiting list and 53 households in temporary accommodation in Stroud district. Cllr Gary Luff, (Green, Painswick) chair of Housing, pointed out that there are 25,000 more bedrooms than people in this district.
“Some home-owners have two or more bedrooms in their houses that are unoccupied and some people own second homes that are left unoccupied for most of the time. I’d really like to do more to reduce under-occupancy of second homes and ensure homes are used more effectively.
“Some of the new developments would not need to be built if housing was used more efficiently.
“So in that sense we don’t have a housing shortage. What we have is an affordable housing shortage. With ever-rising house prices and private rents, people are spending more and more of their income on housing.
“Supply is unequally distributed, and the quality of some housing – even new-builds – is poor, but people feel they don’t have a choice. In Stroud we are trying to do something about it by delivering safe, energy efficient homes in places that people want to live.”
He aspires to change the dynamic of all the power being in the hands of private landlords, many of whom see renting their houses – sometimes poor quality – just as a way to make money. “We want to take the power away from landlords by offering more rental homes at affordable rents, and by making homes so energy efficient that the occupiers pay much lower bills. All this means landlords will have to compete for tenants instead of taking them for granted; they will have to make their houses better and more affordable.”
Energy efficiency is a key aim of the council. Last year, SDC attained EPC C energy ratings for its council homes, five years ahead of the government’s target of 2023 for private rented homes. Having an EPC C rating means that homes are above average in terms of energy efficiency, with reasonable insulation, double glazing, and a modern boiler.
Some of SDC’s houses are even better. Eight new council homes in Wotton-under-Edge, recently completed, have the highest possible energy efficiency grade of EPC A, with superior insulation and solar panels. This means the houses will have extremely low running costs and minimal carbon emissions.
They also have EV chargers, cycle storage and even hedgehog tunnels.
Gary said: “We’re not unique in doing all this work but we’re unusual. There’s no reason why we should be; other councils could be doing the same thing. But they’re not, because they lack the political will. This is the sort of thing that perhaps only a Green-led council can achieve, with the will and imagination to make these things happen.”
