- Newham Council, in East London, blamed Government cuts to housing benefit for need to move tenants
- The council says there are 32,000 people on its housing waiting list
- Says market rents are too high and it can't afford to keep tenants in private accommodation
- Government accuses council of 'playing politics' and insists there are homes available
By James Chapman
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Speaking out: Iain Duncan Smith last night dismissed claims that welfare cuts are causing 'social cleansing'
Iain Duncan Smith last night dismissed claims that welfare cuts are causing ‘social cleansing’.
The Work and Pensions Secretary spoke out after a Labour council suggested it would have to move benefit claimants hundreds of miles because of a new cap on payments.
Mr Duncan Smith said he was ‘appalled and astonished’ by the allegations, adding that there were ‘thousands’ of cheaper properties where tenants could be housed closer to home.
Newham Council in East London said it was writing to more than 1,000 housing associations around the country â€" including one in Stoke-on-Trent 160 miles away â€" to try to find accommodation for families applying under the new rules.
As part of its measures to cut the spiralling welfare bill, the Government has introduced weekly caps on housing benefit of between £250 a week for a one-bedroom flat and £400 a week for a four-bedroom property.
The Coalition has also decided to cap total welfare pay ments at £26,000 a year.
Ministers say it is completely unacceptable that those on welfare have been provided with taxpayer-funded properties costing as much as £100,000 a year to rent. They say that like many of those in employment, they should have to live in more affordable areas.
But Newham mayor Sir Robin Wales insisted spiralling rents in his borough â€" which is hosting the Olympics â€" and the housing benefit cap meant it could no longer afford to put up tenants in the private rented sector.
Newham Council has written to the Brighter Futures Housing Association in Stoke - 170 miles away - to ask them to 'lease' homes to it and take on 500 families
Newham's Mayor Robin Wales said aside from thousands of people needing to be housed in the Olympic borough, there was a problem with overcrowding
‘We are one of the poorest areas in the country, we have massive overcrowding, the people who are here we are trying to deal with,’ he said.
‘What happens? The Government, they pursue policies that push people out from the centre of London out to here.
‘There just isn’t the capacity to deal with them and we end up chasing round the country trying to deal with people who are in need. It is not a policy that I am particularly keen on.’ Gill Brown, chief executive of Brighter Futures in Stoke-on-Trent, one of the housing organisations contacted by Newham, said: ‘I think there is a real issue of social cleansing going on.’
A proposal sent to Tory-controlled Westminster City Council by one of its private providers, Smart Housing Group, suggests rehousing ‘150 people within the next 12 or so months’ as far away as Derby.
Croydon Council in South London has said it is seeking to rent private accommodation in Hull, while Waltham Forest, in North-East London, has moved a small number of families to Luton.
Mr Duncan Smith said the claims from Newham Council were ‘nonsense’ and that there were ‘thousands of houses’ within a few miles which fell within the cap.
A council estate in Canning Town in Newham where Mr Wales said there is one case where there's 38 people living in one property and 16 of them are children
Ministers said there was a £190million fund available to help councils manage the reforms and insisted that even after the cap, families can still claim up to £21,000 a year towards their rent. Mr Duncan Smith said the cap had been in place since April 2011 and ‘every other council’ was ‘managing’.
‘We inherited a housing benefit bill that was out of control,’ he added. ‘We need to get people into housing they can afford to go to work from, so the taxpayer doesn’t have to foot that bill. I suspect this is a little political at a time of local elections.’
A Government source said: ‘These reforms have been up and running for over a year, and any suggestion of “social cleansing†is patently ridiculous and factually inaccurate.’
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In Nottingham when council housing was first built after the first world war, applicants had to be Nottingham residents with wages below a certain level, married, and able to produce satisfactory character references!
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Get rid of the green belt and resolve all housing problems including the astronomical prices for property. - Dajo, Surrey, 24/4/2012 16:16 -----------------------Shall we start with Surrey?
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It was Labour's then-deputy prime minister John Prescott who launched Pathfinder in 2003. The original £2.2bn plan was to demolish 90,000 terraces nationwide, renovate thousands more, and revive the housing market in places that were missing out on the property boom. It was overt social engineering - the "social mix" would change as the terraces, often lived in by elderly working class people who had been there, like Barbara, all their lives were replaced by "mixed use".*******************************This is what happened to Stoke and now they are about to heap more misery on the City. Google Pathfinder.
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- katie , London Newham, 24/4/2012 23:33 Stupid katie, who makes people rent from "greedy landlords"? NEVER have council homes rent ever covered the cost of them homes. Not even when I was in one 70 years ago. People love to rent my home, or part of it. Maybe you could offer them a better deal than this greedy landlord. NO? Just be satisfied you are getting benefits from the 40% tax paid on rental income profit.
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They wont like Stoke,its a right depressing dump
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There is a huge problem in at least one southwest London borough that has on the one hand a large housing waiting list (regardless of the deservedness or otherwise of those on the list) and UNDER OCCUPATION. The Government, and local authorities need to urgently tackle the problem of tenants ending up living in properties that are way too large for their needs, for a variety of reasons. How is it acceptable for one person to live in a house that has a smaller flat in the same building that has a couple with four children, just because they have lived there for some years? I think it's plain immoral, as well as an abuse of tax payers' money, which is paying for it. Why doesn't Government get to grips with this problem? Why are children of Council tenants allowed to 'inherit' the right to Council property and why are tenants allowed to rent out rooms, therefore making money out of tax payers' hard earned money? There are a lot of things that need urgentl y sorting out, urgently.
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If I were a pathetic, whingeing non-achiever, I would be glad just to have a roof over my head.
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i would assume(probably rightly) that all these people are on benefits. i cannot see anyone being forcibly moved who is in employment.
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I live in Newham and just a stones throw from the olympic village. There is no housing here and I see Newham council's point. There is a family living near by in a 5 bed house,not one of them works and to the tune of £600 a week. It's packed to the rafters here and not much work to boot. I would think that if Newham council needs more housing then they should look in to buying houses and paying mortgages on properties, at least they would own the properties rather than feeding greedy landlords. By the way, has anyone ask the people they moved out how happy they are ? I bet they are happy.
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This is disgraceful. The government has double crossed Stoke on Trent and withdrawn money promised for re-generation. To now want to off-load undesirables from their own back door onto the long suffering population of Stoke on Trent is indefensible. This must not happen. This area has been brought down by it's stagnant re- generation programme ,and to a certain extent by absent landlords. This is a social issue that needs addressing. Do not bring more people living on benefits into this already deprived area.
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