Housing associations and private landlords are not helping Dorset’s rising homeless figures.

Despite pleas, it is claimed they are largely refusing to build single-bed homes – said to be one of the biggest areas of need in the county.

Because the rent, or purchase price, of two-bed accommodation is much higher many are unable to afford a place of their own.

Senior county assurance officer John Alexander told Wednesday’s Dorset County Council people and communities committee that a county-wide lack of suitable, affordable homes was the biggest single factor in preventing people having a home.

Labour councillor Kate Wheller said it was a failure of the open market to meet needs – and called for council houses to be built again.

“If we leave it to the market to provide there will always be problems,” she said.

Said North Dorset housing spokesman Cllr Graham Carr-Jones: "The problem has been a reluctance to build one-bedroom accommodation because they can’t get as much for them.

“We have said to housing associations time and time again that the biggest need is for single-bed accommodation, but it falls on deaf ears.”

Shaftesbury councillor Derek Beer claimed that much of the problem was hidden. He had come across people sleeping in vans or cars and one young man who slept in a clothes bank.

He called for a better service for people who found themselves suddenly homeless, something which he said often seemed to happen on a Friday afternoon when housing offices and other forms of help were shutting down for the weekend.

The committee will look again at the problem and will ask the new Dorset Council to consider funding an Emergency Local Assistance scheme which will come to an end in April 2019 when Government finance is withdrawn. The scheme is used in a variety of ways to help people who find themselves homeless in the county.

The request to keep the fund going once Government money is withdrawn was put by Rodwell councillor Clare Sutton: “For the sake of £200,000 a year it has a real impact on reducing homelessness,” she said.

“We need to ensure that good initiatives like this continue in Dorset and don’t get lost with the new Dorset Council,” said Cllr Wheller.

In a briefing note to councillors the Emergency Local Assistance fund was said to “usually help people struggling as a result of benefit cuts or delays, or people leaving refuges or prison. They offer help with benefits realisation, often recovering significant amounts of money; the Return on Investment for the £200k pa budget for ELA can be anywhere between £500k and £2m. They can also help clients purchase basic items for setting up a home, such as reconditioned white goods.”