A Conservative-controlled London borough is considering moving at least 150 homeless housing-benefit claimants 200km away to Derby and Nottingham in central England, it has emerged.
The proposal, being considered by Westminster council in conjunction with two other Tory London boroughs, was revealed on the day it emerged Labour-run Newham borough was planning to move housing benefit claimants to Stoke-on-Trent in England’s west midlands.
The plans under consideration by the Conservative boroughs will prove embarrassing for Conservative housing minister Grant Shapps, who yesterday suggested any move to push people to other parts of the country because of a lack of housing was “outrageous”.
Mr Shapps told BBC radio: “Not only do I think it’s unfair and wrong, I’ve also made legislation and guidance that says they’re not to do this.” He defended the idea of the housing benefit cap, which gives maximum allowable rents for properties, for example £400 a week for a four-bedroom property. “It can’t be right to have people on housing benefit living on streets which hard-working families cannot afford to live on,” he said.
Newham, one of the most economically deprived local authorities in the UK, which legally must house claimants, says it has been forced to look “further afield for alternative supply” of affordable housing.
Sir Robin Wales, the elected mayor of Newham, said many of the landlords of these properties would not accept people on housing benefit. He rejected the idea that his borough was merely trying to shift problem families to another area after the borough plans came to light. “No, we’ve looked at it and we’ve done the best we can,” he said.
The borough, which will host this summer’s Olympics, wrote to the Brighter Futures housing association in Stoke, offering it the “opportunity” to lease homes to the council. It pitched for 500 families to move 260km from east London to the west midlands.
The pressure is replicated elsewhere in Greater London. In February it emerged that the borough of Croydon was seeking to rent private accommodation in Hull, on the east coast of England and several towns in Yorkshire in the north of England. Labour-run Waltham Forest, in north-east London, sent a small number of families to live in Luton, north of London just over a year ago.
Homelessness charity Shelter’s chief executive Campbell Robb said: “This is the terrifying reality of our housing crisis today.” – (Guardian service)