The number of homeless children living in temporary accommodation in Slough has skyrocketed, according to official government figures.

A total of 1,285 children were living in temporary accommodation provided by Slough Borough Council between January and March this year - up from 474 in the same period in the year before.

The news comes after slough council leaders say they’ve had to increase the amount of money they spend on providing temporary accommodation for homeless families.

Around 23 families with children were living in bed and breakfasts or shared annexes after being placed there by the council to avoid homelessness in the first three months of this year. That’s up from just two in the same period last year.

READ MORE: A fifth of children in Slough were living in poverty last year

On top of that, 326 were in nightly paid, privately managed and self-contained accommodation, up from 38 last year.

In total there were 1,019 homeless households in Slough between January and March, of which 604 had children. That compares to 378 homeless households, of which 213 had children between January and March last year.

The news comes after Slough Borough Council had to commit to spending £1.4 million on housing this year, mostly to take into account the rising costs of temporary accommodation.

The council spent almost £6 million more than it planned to on homelessness services last year. Conservative council leader Dexter Smith has said this is because previous Labour leaders didn’t allocate enough money to temporary accommodation.

Speaking in June he said: “In the case of temporary accommodation we only had enough for 17 families – we had 700 on the books.”