Folkestone & Hythe: 155 Children in Temporary Accommodation as Costs Double and Out-of-Area Placements Soar

The number of children living in temporary accommodation arranged by Folkestone & Hythe District Council has more than doubled in two years. Now, as the Government introduces a new legal duty intended to stop homeless children falling through the gaps between councils, schools and health services, FHDC’s own figures show just how rapidly the local problem has grown.

On 31 March 2024, 63 children were living in temporary accommodation provided and funded by Folkestone & Hythe District Council.

A year later there were 104.

By 31 March 2026, there were 155 children.

They were among 313 adults and children living in 132 households for which FHDC was providing temporary accommodation. In just two years, the number of households had risen from 49 to 132 — an increase of 169% — while the number of children had risen by 146%.

Temporary accommodation is the housing a council uses when somebody is homeless and it has a duty to accommodate them. It can include self-contained flats, hostels, nightly-paid accommodation and, in some circumstances, bed and breakfasts. Whatever form it takes, the Government’s statutory Homelessness Code says accommodation secured for a homeless household must be suitable.

And the bill is climbing almost as quickly as the numbers.

FHDC says its total temporary-accommodation expenditure was £448,595 in 2020/21. It fell slightly over the following two years before reaching £473,181.63 in 2023/24.

Then it took off.

The council spent £938,857 in 2024/25 and £1,956,456.39 in 2025/26. That’s a rise of about 108% in a single year, and 2025/26 expenditure was more than four times the amount spent five years earlier.

Those figures shouldn’t be confused with the specific cost of sending people outside Folkestone and Hythe. FHDC says its finance system doesn’t distinguish between temporary accommodation inside and outside the district, so it can’t say how much of the £1.96 million was spent on out-of-area placements.

But we do know how many households were being sent elsewhere.

During 2023/24, FHDC placed 17 households outside the district, including 15 households with children. In 2024/25 that became 68 households, 42 with children. And during 2025/26 it reached 140 households, including 87 households with children.

That’s an eight-fold increase in all out-of-area household placements in two years, while the number involving families with children rose from 15 to 87 — up 480%.

There’s an important distinction here. Those are the numbers of households placed outside the district at any point during each financial year, rather than the number outside on one particular day. At the 31 March 2026 snapshot, 41 of FHDC’s 132 temporary-accommodation households were outside the borough, while 91 were within it.

The first months of the new financial year suggest the pressure hasn’t simply disappeared. Between 6 April and 30 June 2026, another 67 households were placed out of area, including 32 households with children.

Moving somebody outside Folkestone and Hythe isn’t unlawful in itself. But Section 208 of the Housing Act 1996 requires councils, so far as reasonably practicable, to secure accommodation within their own district. Where an authority does place somebody elsewhere, it must notify the council receiving that household. The Government says the notification requirement applies to all out-of-district placements and written notification should be made within 14 days.

FHDC says those Section 208 notifications are routinely sent through its Huume housing computer system.

There’s a catch.

The system apparently can’t produce a report showing how many FHDC actually sent, and the council doesn’t keep a separate record from which the total can be established.

That doesn’t mean notifications weren’t sent. FHDC expressly says sending them is standard procedure. But it does mean that after making 140 out-of-area placements in 2025/26, the council can’t produce a figure showing how many corresponding Section 208 notifications went out.

That matters because placing a homeless family miles from its previous home isn’t simply a matter of finding an available room. Government guidance says councils should record how decisions to place households outside their area were reached, taking account of the collective and individual needs of the family.

For children, location can mean changing the school run, travelling much further to see a GP, losing nearby family support or simply finding yourself dumped into completely unfamiliar surroundings.

The Government acknowledges the consequences. Its new guidance says living in temporary accommodation can damage children’s health, wellbeing and educational outcomes, and says better information-sharing is needed so schools and health providers know when a child may require additional support.

That is why the law changed on 1 September 2026.

Under a new Section 213AA of the Housing Act 1996, introduced by the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, councils must now take reasonable steps to notify relevant schools, GP practices and health-visiting services when a child is placed in temporary accommodation. The parent or carer — or an independently applying 16 or 17-year-old — must first agree to the information being shared, and agreement has to be sought separately for each child and each relevant service.

Once agreement has been obtained, the council normally has 14 days to make the notification. Information should include the child’s name, date of birth and the fact that they’re living in temporary accommodation. Health-visiting notifications can additionally include the temporary address and contact information so the service can actually reach the child.

It isn’t retrospective across every child already housed by FHDC. The new duty applies to qualifying temporary-accommodation placements made from 1 September 2026, and ordinarily arises once, at the initial placement under an application. Government guidance nevertheless encourages councils to consider further notifications, with agreement, where that would protect continuity of children’s education and healthcare.

Nationally the backdrop is grim. Around 177,530 children are now living in temporary accommodation. The Government’s concern is that moving families can disrupt school attendance, healthcare appointments and access to support, leaving children at risk of falling through the gaps between public services.

There is one area where FHDC’s latest figures offer some reassurance.

Nine households with children were placed in B&B accommodation during 2026, but FHDC says every stay lasted between one and six nights, and none remained there for more than six weeks.

That’s important. The Homelessness Code says B&B accommodation can be particularly damaging to children’s health and development and should be used for families only as a last resort. Where there is no alternative, the legal maximum is normally six weeks. On the figures supplied by FHDC, none of those nine families breached that limit.

B&B isn’t the only measure of how long homelessness can drag on, however. As at 31 July, one family had been living in temporary accommodation for 528 days — roughly 17 months.

And getting from temporary accommodation into a permanent council or housing-association home can be another long haul.

There were 1,262 households on FHDC housing register on 3 December 2025. By 31 March 2026 that had climbed to 1,313, rising again to 1,332 by 2 August. It now stands at 1,346 households — another 14 in a month and 84 more than in December, an increase of 6.66% in nine months. FHDC’s own website says three-bedroom applicants rehoused during the latest 12-month period had waited an average of 170 weeks, while the longest completed three-bedroom wait was 667 weeks — nearly 13 years.

The council’s FOI response reveals something still more extraordinary. The three earliest effective dates on its housing register at the beginning of April were 29 September 1999, 5 October 2001 and 14 January 2002.

None of this means FHDC can conjure up homes that don’t exist. Councils across England are grappling with a severe shortage of affordable housing and record numbers of children in temporary accommodation. But Folkestone and Hythe’s figures show the local consequences in unusually stark terms: 155 children in temporary accommodation, £1.96 million spent in a year, 140 households sent outside the district and 87 of those placements involving families with children.

Three days ago the law changed because Government believes schools, doctors, health visitors and housing departments need to know when children have been displaced before support gets lost along the way.

For Folkestone and Hythe, that new duty arrives not a moment too soon.

The Shepway Vox Team

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