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Poor housing in London is costing the National Health Service as much as £56 million a year, according to a damning new report.

At least 450,000 homes in the capital fail health and safety standards with many of them overcrowded, cold and riddled with toxic mould. The report warns this “hazard” is placing a burden on the NHS with people needing treatment for fall injuries, depression and other health problems related to living in substandard homes.

The cost to society of this problem is estimated at around £140 million a year in terms of lost work days and children failing at school. The findings, from the BRE Trust charity, also suggest that soaring property prices in London are partly to blame by triggering overcrowding.

Jennifer Douse, from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, warns in a foreward to the report that “high housing costs force the most vulnerable to choose between eating and heating.”

The BRE Trust is now calling for a 10-year improvement programme, and estimates this would save the NHS £359 million over 25 years.

With house prices in London predicted to rise to an average of £650,000 in the next six years, the report says a lack of affordable housing is contributing to fuel poverty, overcrowding and other adverse effects.

Around 450,000 homes in the capital are defined as “poor housing” according to the trust, the UK’s largest charity dedicated to research and education in the built environment.

This means they fail at least one major health and safety standard with the worst examples occurring in privately- rented flats or in the social housing sectors. This figure includes 15,000 homes which are classed as “severely overcrowded” — five times the national average.

Overcrowding can have a “devastating” effect on families and aggravates the risk of falls and fire deaths, the report warns. TB is also associated with overcrowding, and levels of the disease in London are five times higher than the rest of the UK.

The most extreme problems occur in privately-rented houses, where average rents are £243 a week for a three-bed property.

The BRE report, which is published tomorrow, presents a stark picture of how huge variations exist between — and even within — London boroughs on housing standards. In Lambeth the estimated cost of excess cold is more than £1 million a year while the figure for Redbridge is £715,000.The cost for overcrowding in Tower Hamlets is put at £1.1 million.

But the report says simple improvements by landlords and occupiers can reduce threats to health. These include handrails on hazardous stairs as well as hard-wired smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.