Dr. Julie Rugge with Fred and Chris
Report on trip to Camden Private Tenants Conference
On
Wednesday, 25th of March a delegation from the Federation went to
Camden Federation private tenant’s annual conference in Bloomsbury Square
London.
They have been running a Private tenants federation for over 20 years and this was
their first conference since 2005.
As we have
just recently set up a Private tenants
forum and are holding a market place information event in April we wanted to
see how a group of long standing in this field went about things and we wanted
to find out a little more of what they did for the private sector tenants in
Camden.
Although
there was very little time to discuss the day to day tasks they face and their
solutions because of the extremely full agenda of the conference we made some
useful contacts who have promised us any assistance we need in our aims.
We chose
Camden as they along with Brent (who we visited in January) seem to be the only
2 agencies specifically tackling all issues regarding the private sector
tenant, and the more we learn from these groups, the more we realise what a
mammoth task it is we have undertaken.
From the
conference and the many speakers we learned how complex this subject is in the
fact that a private tenant comes in many guises and where they have issues each
has its own approach and possible solution.
Camden and
Blackpool are very similar in that we both have 22% (approx) of our population
in Private sector rented accommodation which at the moment is twice the
national average.
Where we
are a bit better off is that is that we have about 15 council officers working
with private tenant matters in Blackpool where as the nation average is 5.
We were
privileged to meet and listen to Dr. Julie Rugge (of the Rugge report on
Private tenants) who, after speaking about her report and answering questions put to her by the
conference members had to say that she
as a so called authority on the subject didn’t have a solution to all issues.
The one
main thing, if we had to choose was that
it is vital we all work together (Residents groups, landlords, letting agencies
and councils) to get the information out to
not only the private tenant but in a lot of cases the private landlord
as well.
All in all
a very informative and enlightening day.