A new report in The Guardian suggests that the freeze (real terms cut) in housing benefit is having the effect of making large parts of London and Manchester out of bounds.

Britain’s housing crisis has hit a new low with not one of the single rooms available for private rent in large parts of London and Greater Manchester within the budget of people on housing benefit.

None of 87 rooms for rent in outer south-west London – which includes areas such as Feltham and Hanworth – were affordable for people relying on local housing allowance (LHA) and neither were any of the rooms in the southern Greater Manchester area, including Stockport and Wythenshawe, according to analysis of official 2018 data by London Councils, the local government association for the capital.