Council borrowing caps must be raised if Arm’s Length Management Organisations (Almos) are to help meet the ‘chronic’ demand for social housing, the groups claim.
Many more homes could have been built by if, the groups have claimed.
The findings have been revealed in a new survey by the National Federation of Almos.
It found that although the arms-length organisations built 542 new homes in 2014 - a 20% increase on 2013 - they were not able to build enough to help meet the national demand for new social housing.
The NFA says the latest government figures show there are more than 1.3m households on local authority waiting lists across England. It expects its members will build 2,000 new homes over the next five years.
The NFA has led a coalition of housing organisations to campaign for the local authority borrowing cap to be raised to enable further investment in new social housing.
NFA managing director Eamon McGoldrick said: ‘In the current funding environment delivering over 500 new homes is a significant achievement and I applaud our members for their hard work and dedication.
‘However this survey clearly illustrates how changes to the finance available for new build is preventing Almos from getting anywhere near the number of homes we need to build if we are to ease the chronic housing shortage.
‘Once again we call on the government to consider increasing the local authority borrowing cap to help kick-start the delivery of badly needed social and affordable housing.’
