Sheffield City Council gets highest number of housing complaints outside of London, new FOI data reveals
Sheffield City Council had the highest number of housing complaints outside of London - driven by residents pleading for repairs.
New Freedom of Information research has named the councils in England which received the most housing-related complaints from their tenants.
Sheffield City Council ranks third on the list with 3,019 total complaints - the highest number outside of the capital.
It shows Sheffield’s most complained about issue is repairs, with a total of 1,120 complaints related to repairs - or a lack of them - between April 2024 and March 2025.
In July 2024, a regulator criticised the authority over its inability to deal with a backlog of more than 14,000 council house repairs.
More than 90 per cent were outstanding for ‘extended periods’ and the average time to fix them was four months, more than double the 55-day standard, according to the Regulator of Social Housing.
It also found the council ‘did not have an accurate record’ of the condition of its 38,500 homes.
All council home rents then increased by 2.7 per cent in April 2025.
Chair of the Housing Committee Councillor Douglas Johnson said at a full council meeting at the time: “There is an increase in £3m in money for housing repairs. We know it’s something that tenants are demanding, it is something that the housing committee are focused on and it’s something that staff have risen to.”
The council manages £187m of income from 38,000 council homes.
The London Borough of Hackney received the most complaints at 5,982, with repairs as the biggest concern. Another London Borough, Lambeth, follows in second place.
The data was released by landlord insurance firm Alan Boswell Group through FOI requests to councils in England.
Personal lines director Heath Alexander-Bew says: “This Freedom of Information request highlights where renters are the most unhappy with their living arrangements, with councils in London receiving a much higher number of complaints than councils around the country.
“What’s more is that repairs seem to be the key issue that landlords and councils need to consider and invest more time in above all else as fixing the repair issues for residents will ensure that the number of complaints overall could reduce dramatically, and may even have a knock-on effect to other forms of complaints, such as ‘response time and lack of action’.”
In response, Councillor Douglas Johnson, Chair of the Housing Committee at Sheffield City Council, said: “We take our role as a social landlord very seriously.
“We have always been and remain proud to be one of the largest social landlords in the country with over 38,000 properties to maintain and keep as warm, comfortable and future-proof homes our tenants can be proud to call home.
“To do so, we have for a few years been working hard to improve the performance of our Repairs and Maintenance Service. This has been reflected by significant increases in our Tenant Satisfaction Measures over both the previous 12 months, and 24 months.
“But we are not naïve and know that more work needs to be done. To help with this we will be seeing another significant financial investment in extra resources to keep up with tenant needs on repairs.”