The number of people sleeping on the streets in Croydon more than trebled in the last year, shocking new figures show. 

Nearly 100 more people were forced onto the streets in the borough between May 2012 and April this year.

The surge is the second highest in London, more than all boroughs except Lambeth.

At least 134 people slept rough in Croydon in the last year, according to statistics published by the Combined Homeless and Information Network.

The previous year 42 people were known to have spent at least a night on the streets, up from 25 in 2010/11. 

It means rough sleepers have increased 536 per cent in Croydon in the last two years.

The pronounced rise comes amid deepening homelessness problems across the capital, where 6,437 slept rought last year - 13 per cent rise on 2011/12 and 62 per cent more than in 2010/11.

The figures sparked calls for more affordable houses to be built from homelessness charities.

Leslie Morphy, chief executive of Crisis, said: "The mayor of London pledged to eliminate rough sleeping in the capital by 2012.

"Instead we see today the number of people sleeping on London’s streets – in absolute destitution in one of the world’s richest cities – has more than doubled on Boris’s watch."

"He has the power to build tens of thousands more genuinely affordable homes and can protect services that prevent and solve homelessness, plus the clout to influence central government to reverse housing benefit cuts that have proved so damaging and are directly causing Londoners to fall into homelessness and rough sleeping."

Howard Sinclair, chief executive of Broadway, said: "While we acknowledge and welcome the significant investment made in services for rough sleepers in London, and the positive impact of that investment, we are clear that we need to maintain a similar investment level in preventative services so as to stop people arriving on the streets in the first place.

"Yet this is the area which has experienced dramatically reduced funding over the past two years.”

Some 23 people who had never slept rough before were forced to take to the streets of Croydon during just March and April this year.