Influx of Londoners 'could mean rent hikes in Reading'

Adam Hewitt • Published 27 Oct 2010 14:30 2 Comments

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PEOPLE on housing benefit priced out of London could be put up in towns like Reading, according to experts in the capital.

Inside Housing magazine reported Nigel Minto, head of sustainable communities at London Councils, saying the Government’s proposed caps on housing benefit had prompted central London boroughs to contact private landlords in Reading and other towns in case they needed to place people in temporary accommodation.

The magazine’s original report saying London boroughs were “block booking” rooms in Reading is untrue, according to London Councils.

Reading housing leader, Lib Dem Cllr Daisy Benson, said: “If other councils place homeless households in our area they have a duty to advise us.”

She has told housing officers to “monitor” the situation to ensure Reading’s tenants are not disadvantaged by higher prices, forced up by an influx of Londoners.

Labour has accused the Government of “sociologically cleansing” the capital of its poorest people and the party’s candidate in Redlands ward, Jan Gavin, said: “In the early 1980s it wasn’t unusual for London councils to arrange B&B rooms in Reading to house London’s homeless - including giving them rail tickets to travel here. This sometimes made it more difficult and more expensive to meet Reading’s own needs. This could well happen again, causing more costs to Reading council.”

The Government wants to cut housing benefit by 10% for anyone on jobeekers' allowance for more than a year, and cap the benefit for private sector homes. The cap will range from £250 for a one-bed home to £400 a week for a four-bed one. There will also be higher rents in council and housing association homes, up to 80% of market value, and an end to the right for a council house for life for new tenants. But the Government has also pledged to build 150,000 more social homes.

Critics say the plans could force thousands of people out of their homes, especially large families in expensive cities, where landlords are often accused of hiking rents at taxpayers' expense.

This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 27 Oct 10

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Sterling
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Oct 31, 05:58
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Failed Labour should stop spreading wild and hysterical lies over proposed and urgently necessary cuts to housing benefits. Official Government figures show 32% on housing benefit (297,100) will be completely unaffected; 65% will face a reduction of less than £20 and the remainder (17,600) between £20 - £30. Housing benefit will range from £250 a WEEK for a one bedroom, to a more than generous £400 per WEEK for a four bedroom property.

Labour had better realise that at last the electorate have woken up to the grotesque irony that many welfare claimants are better off than hard-working families. All these urgent cuts are necessary because of the direct inheritance from Labour's legacy of debt that virtually bankrupted this country.

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waswasere
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Nov 2, 13:19
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Of course, what Labour conveniently forget to mention is that the centre of London has been in their own terminology "sociologically cleansed" by them already. Only the poor and the extremely wealthy can afford to live in the city.

No wonder Labour are set against cutting housing benefit. They have been subsidising their electorate on the council tax for years. The irony is that t is the commuters who don't earn enough to live in London who end up paying for the housing benefits that create the high rents that forced them out of the city in the first place.

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Mar 7, 04:42
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******
Mar 28, 16:16
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