More than one in 20 homes in Buckinghamshire failed to meet decent standards, new figures show.

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities figures show 8 per cent of all 223,422 occupied homes in Buckinghamshire failed to meet the Government’s official Decent Homes Standard.

The area had one of the lowest rates of homes in bad condition.

Overall, across England the proportion of private rented homes found to be in bad condition was twice as high as social housing homes, with 23 per cent compared with 11 per cent.

Matt Copeland, head of policy at NEA, said current incentives and regulation are not sufficient to get landlords to improve their properties.

He added the Government had promised to consult on increasing the minimum energy efficiency standard of private rented properties, but there has been no further development on this.

He said: “In general, action on energy efficiency has been poor for the last decade. It’s a key pillar for fighting fuel poverty and reaching our binding net zero target.

“Behind the statistics and targets are real lives being ruined by cold, damp housing.”

In Buckinghamshire, 11 per cent of private rented homes were deemed non-decent and 8% of all social homes.

Across the country, 9 per cent of all 23.9 million homes had category 1 hazards observed, which are the most serious hazards. The figure stood at 5 per cent in Buckinghamshire.