More homeless people died in Manchester than in any other local authority area in England and Wales in 2017, according to the first national statistics capturing the pattern of deaths among rough sleepers and people living in homeless shelters.

In 2017, 21 homeless people died in the city, three more than in Birmingham and four more than in Liverpool. Overall, 136 people died in London – which is made up of 33 local authorities – including 17 deaths in Lambeth and 15 in Camden, according to the estimates.

The figures show that the relative poverty of an area is closely linked to the number of rough sleeper deaths. The most deprived areas had about nine times more deaths of homeless people relative to their population than the least disadvantaged areas, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found.

The figures follow last December’s estimate that 597 homeless people died in England and Wales in 2017 and a total of 2,627 had died in the five years from 2014.

Official rough sleeping counts in Manchester have soared from seven people in 2010 to 123 in 2018 and, in common with many other cities, it has become highly visible, with numerous people bedding down in city centre doorways and underpasses.

Manchester has one of the highest rough sleeping rates in the country, and one homeless man who has lost two friends has even been running homelessness tours to increase awareness.

But smaller towns recorded the highest numbers of homeless deaths per head of population. Blackburn with Darwen, in Lancashire, appeared in the five highest rates in four of the five years from 2014, and in 2017 it had the highest rate in England and Wales, with nine deaths on record.

The next highest rate was in Oxford, followed by Camden, Barrow-in-Furness and Canterbury. The Guardian revealed last month that at least four homeless people had died in Oxford since November, and this month the body of another suspected rough sleeper was found in a churchyard. An estimated 10 homeless people died in Oxford in 2017, according to the ONS, and 33 in the five years from 2014.

The situation in Oxford has sparked widespread public anger and last week the city council asked the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Adults Board to review whether serious harm experienced by people with care and support needs was down to neglect or abuse and whether this could have been predicted or stopped.

In December Aron Gibson, 37, died in a McDonald’s in Cornmarket, in Oxford city centre. Four days later Czeslaw Mazak, 36, who slept rough and often without a tent, was found dead near a city centre nightclub, and there were two deaths in housing projects funded by the government’s rough sleeper initiative: Sharron Maasz, 44, who died on 21 January and a 50-year-old man who died on 29 January. A man in his 60s was also found in St Frideswide churchyard and died on 5 February.

Responding to the new figures, Jon Sparkes, chief executive of the homeless charity Crisis, said it was “shameful that hundreds of people across England and Wales with nowhere to turn have died while homeless”.

“Governments must ensure local authorities, particularly in the most deprived areas, have the appropriate funding to conduct reviews into the death of every person who has died while homeless, to prevent more people from dying needlessly,” he said. “They must also make sure that when people do become homeless, they are rehoused quickly, and with the support they need to keep their homes, whether it’s help to find employment, mental health support or drug and alcohol services.”

The ONS said: “These new estimates are important because of the need for high-quality health intelligence to inform local homelessness strategies and the most appropriate provision of services.”

The housing secretary, James Brokenshire, said the data “will support us in our mission to end rough sleeping for good”.

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“Every death on our streets is one too many and it is simply unacceptable to see lives cut short this way,” he said. “That’s why we are investing £1.2bn to tackle homelessness and have bold plans backed by £100m to end rough sleeping for good. Councils have used this funding to create an additional 1,750 beds and 500 rough sleeping support staff.”

He highlighted figures published last month that showed a small fall in rough sleeping across England and Wales for the first time in eight years, albeit with increases in major cities. Some councils have said that they were encouraged by the ministry of housing to use a snapshot street count rather than estimates that are also based on other information, leading to concerns of undercounting.

“I am also committed to ensuring independent reviews into the deaths of rough sleepers are conducted, where appropriate, so that important lessons are learned – and I will be holding local authorities to account in doing just that,” said Brokenshire.