Over half of people renting a home from a local authority or housing association have had a problem with the building in the past three years, including electrical hazards and gas leaks, a new study suggests.

Shelter said among those with a problem, one in 10 had to report it more than 10 times.

The housing charity said its findings showed that tenants were still being failed by poor regulation.

Half of over 1,000 adults surveyed in England said they had less trust in the Government to keep social tenants safe in their homes since the Grenfell Tower fire almost two years ago.

Shelter said it backed calls for the appointment of a new consumer regulator to protect tenants and inspect social landlords.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: "Social tenants living in Grenfell Tower raised serious safety concerns before the fire, but they were ignored. Two years on, social renters are still being failed by poor regulation and people are still fighting to be heard.

"In the wake of food scandals and financial scandals, the Government responded with new regulators to protect consumers, and that's exactly what we need for social housing.

"It cannot be right that scores of complaints and problems that affect whole blocks of flats, like faulty lifts or gas leaks, go unheard. We need a new regulator that's firmly on the side of tenants.

"Tinkering with the current system just isn't good enough when people have lost trust in it to keep them safe."

A Local Government Association spokesman said: "According to the Government's latest English Housing Survey, more and more council housing is meeting decent home standards every year and overall social housing has the lowest proportion of non-decent homes - 13% compared with 25% in the private rented sector, and 19% among home owners.

"However we recognise there is always room for improvement, and councils are actively working to involve and empower tenants to be part of this process.

"But councils need to have the financial tools to invest in the quality of their housing stock, which is why we are calling on the Government in the Spending Review to reform Right to Buy to ensure that councils can set discounts locally and retain 100% of their receipts to invest locally.

"The country has not built enough homes for decades, meaning more and more people are living in existing housing stock and so increasing the need for repairs and maintenance. As a country we now invest more in maintaining our existing homes than building new ones."