A LONDON council struggling to find homes for poor families because of soaring rents wants to relocate homeless people 250 miles away in the North-East.

Newham Council has written to at least one housing association in the region looking for accommodation for the 32,000 families on its waiting list.

Fabrick Housing Group, which manages 14,500 properties from North Tyneside to York, confirmed to The Northern Echo that it had received a letter from the London authority asking if it could lease some of its housing.

Earlier this week, Newham Council was accused of “social cleansing” after it confirmed it had written to 1,179 housing associations, including one in Stoke-on-Trent, looking for properties for homeless families.

However, the letter to a North-East housing association reveals that the London authority is prepared to send families 100 miles further north than the Staffordshire town.

Monica Burns, North-East manager for the National Housing Federation, said the region had its own housing waiting list of more than 75,000 people.

She said: “They don’t seem to appreciate that we have our own housing crisis as well.

“We don’t have any homes to house these people in, never mind the jobs for them.

“It doesn’t seem to be an acceptable solution at all, even if people were willing to move.”

Alex Cunningham, Stockton North MP, also criticised the proposal, saying he had lists of people who had contacted him looking for help to find a house in the Tees Valley.

He said: “The responsibility for housing lies with the Government.

“They are pricing people out of central London and out of the London boroughs, and forcing London authorities to take quite desperate measures to find houses.”

Sir Robin Wales, Newham’s Mayor, said the appeal for help was prompted by a combination of spiraling rents in the borough, which contains most of the 2012 Olympic Park – including the Olympic stadium – and the Government’s cap on housing benefit, which he says has meant the council can no longer afford to house tenants in privately-owned accommodation.

He said: “We haven’t got the properties. We’re introducing a licensing scheme for the private rented sector because overcrowding is appalling here.

“The Government is pursuing policies that push people out from the centre of London to here. There just isn’t the capacity to deal with them.

“It’s not a policy I have to say that I’m particularly keen on, but I can’t be in a position where people are going to end up in B&Bs – that’s what we’ve got to avoid.”

However, Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, accused Newham Council of “playing politics” in the run-up to local government elections next month.

It is understood Fabrick will not be offering to rehome Newham families.