With changes to Housing Benefit regulations only days away, the York Council has admitted that it doesn’t know how many of its Council houses are under – occupied (have one or more spare bedrooms).

In response to a Freedom of Information request it has only been able to say that, on the North Yorkshire Home Choice register, there are 839 tenants who may be affected by the change. 546 have two or more empty rooms.

However, these figures include some who are renting privately and who have never qualified for an empty bedroom subsidy.

The figures exclude those, such as pensioners, who are not affected by the changes.