London boroughs have more than doubled the number of homeless families they are placing outside the capital as a result of the soaring costs of private rented accommodation.
Unpublished documents by London Councils, seen by Inside Housing, reveal that in the past 12 months to June, 789 households have been housed in 69 local authority areas as far flung as Manchester, Birmingham, Swansea and Accrington.
In the first quarter of 2012/13 just 113 people were placed outside London. But figures for the first quarter of 2013/14 show this figure rocketed 129 per cent to 259.