Black Wednesday for Council tenants

Time was when you were both proud and fortunate to get a Council house. Now that things aren't so easy, benefits are being cut and the Government says a Council tenancy shouldn't be for life, what does Bolsover Council do? Does it extend a helping hand in a time of trouble? Not exactly, on Wednesday morning the Council nodded through an average rent rise of 9% for Council tenants. For some it'll be over 10% and just to add insult to injury, warden and other charges will also be increasing by up to 26%. Feels more like an iron fist than a helping hand to me.

I've spoken to some tenants in Whitwell about this decision and they are both shocked and appalled. They tell me they have never been consulted and ask what on earth is happening to all their money. We are always told most of the Council's budget goes on staffing but no increase at all is predicted for Council staff so where is it going?

Of course if the Council let some of the 149 odd houses standing empty it would help relieve the pressure on rents as would cutting some of the fat, like the £150,000 budgetted every year for "Other Miscellaneous Expenses" but much of the money is being squirrelled away into a fund to build more Council houses. Now I'm all for that but why should only tenants pay for them? - after all they are the ones who already have a Council house! Why doesn't everyone in the District contribute like we do for hospitals, schools and even Housing Association properties (who get grants from the Homes and Communities Agency)? Surely that would be fairer?

The consequence of this short-sighted policy will be to push yet more tenants into benefits ready to fall off a cliff when those same benefits are cut. And it won't even help the Council. With average rents increasing to £74.39 per week it is inevitable that more tenants will get into debt and houses will be harder and harder to let. The Council's budget even calculates just how many will get into debt.

Perhaps the saddest thing of all on Wednesday was not the lack of support from either the Labour group, the Independents or the Residents Association Councillors to my call to cap increases at 5% but their collective failure to acknowledge the pain and distress that their increases will cause. It was as if they didn't want to talk about it. Some even tried to barrack me when as I carefully explained how a pension increase of 5.2% and a rent increase of 9% spells misery to a pensioner.

May-be its time for a bit of old fashioned tenant action to make Bolsover Councillor's realise that Council tenants are not all on benefit. Many tenants have small savings, or miners pensions, that make them ineligible and feel every extra penny charged in rent. They expect a Labour Council to stand-up for them against Coalition policies. Other Councils are rejecting these increases - and it was clear at the meeting that the Leader was well aware of this growing movement. If Labour Councillors in Bolosver can't stand-up for tenants and reject these rent increases, tenants must start to wonder whether they have the stomach to fight for anything........................other than their own allowances of course.

Council housing - what's going on in Bolsover?

It comes to something when we have to rely upon the Government to tell us things that Bolsover won’t but there’s something rather strange about how the Council manages its housing. There’s a Council meeting at 10am on Wednesday the 25^th of January and here’s a couple of questions I’ll be asking the portfolio-holder for housing management:

1.       According to the data provided by Bolsover to the DCLG (Department of Community and Local Government) the number of vacant council properties in Bolsover over the past few years was as follows:

2008 : 10

2009 : 40

2010 : 106

2011 : 128

With average rents of over £63 this dramatic deterioration in performance has lost the authority over £350,000 in the last year alone.

During the same period there has been a national improvement of nearly 25% in reducing voids so can he account for Bolsover’s problems?

2.       According to the data provided by Bolsover to the DCLG the number of applicants on the Council’s housing register dropped from 3,299 in 2010 to 1,180 in 2011 meaning that nearly two in three applicants have been removed from the register.

As a result Bolsover now has not only the shortest list in the County but also the smallest percentage of households in its District on the register. Going right back to 1997, when DCLG records begin, Bolsover has never had so few people on its housing register. It is all the more remarkable that it has occurred when the national trend has seen another increase in households registering.

Can he explain what traumatic event in 2011 occasioned this outcome in Bolsover and what measures has he put in place to ensure that no-one in genuine housing need has been removed from the register?

 
I’ll let you know what reply I get.