Lewisham Council is expected to enter a London-wide accommodation scheme to find permanent homes for the homeless.

This comes after Lewisham Council spent more than £4.6 million on emergency accommodation in six months from September 2017 to February this year – spending more than £1.3 million in December.

Currently local authorities across London compete with each other to find temporary accommodation which pushes up rents, Lewisham Council private sector housing agency manager Madeleine Jeffery said.

Families placed in temporary accommodation can wait for years to be placed in a permanent home.

But Capital Letters, the new scheme between London boroughs, will see local authorities working together to find permanent housing for homeless families or those at risk of homelessness.

Addressing concerns that families could then be placed outside the borough permanently, Lewisham Council strategic housing head Genevieve Macklin said this could happen but was not the aim.

“Somewhere like Southwark [Council] has got about 500 properties in Lewisham. Hopefully through this process…we will have access to more that are in our borough,” she said.

This comes after years of increasing demand for social homes in Lewisham and across London.

In 2010/11 there were 1,900 social lets in Lewisham, with 924 people in temporary accommodation.

However in 2017/18 the number of social lets has fallen to nearly 1,000, with more than 2,000 people in temporary accommodation.

In the same period, rents in Lewisham have increased by 50 per cent and house prices have increased by 80 per cent.

Ms Jeffery said it was the council’s duty to help families settle into a home.

“The number of lettings is falling so the fact is social housing is less available than it was in the past,” she said.

“Our duties are to settle people into accommodation where they can actually get on with their life,” she added.

More than 50 per cent of people needing temporary accommodation had come from the private rental sector, she said.

The proposal to join the scheme is yet to be signed off by the mayor and cabinet.