Federation visit to Brent Private Tenants Rights Group (Click for website)
Representatives of the Federation and Blackpool Council recently visited Brent Private Tenants Rights Group
and Brent Council offices on a fact finding trip to see what they have in place to advise and protect
the private sector tenants in their area.
Why Brent?
Brent have had a private tenants rights group for the past 22 years and, although an independent body,
they work alonglside the council at several levels regarding private sector tenancies.
They are in a lot of ways able to do more for these tenants than the council are in some cases.
The
group is lead by Jacky peacock OBE with the help of some paid staff and
several volunteer workers each with their own area of expertese.
Included
in this visit was a half day at Brent Council offices to meet and talk
with officers relevent to the private sector tenants. and to see how
they work in comparison to anything Blackpool are doing for this sector.
The
afternoon was spent visiting some of the many private tenants to
discuss some of the problems they faced in either getting decent
private accommodation or getting on the housing list (which we were
told by the Council could take up to eight years or more)
The percentage of housing in Brent is approximately one third Council, one third Private tenant and one third Homeowner.
Some of the flats we saw were almost inhabitable and the rents for these places were astronomical
(for example, a single room flat we saw with no cooking facilities and no clothes hanging space was £200 per week.)
Because of recent rent scaling by the Council,some private landlords are charging as much as £900 per week
for a 3 bedroom flat knowing that it will be paid by benefits.
Brent
P.T.R.G are just starting a new scheme ( Homeplan) to help people in
poor accommodation and working to actually buy their own home.
We
got the feeling that most parties were doing the best thay can to
address the issues in the private sector but the words Head and Brick
wall come to mind, but all credit to Jacky Peacock and her team they
are still in there fighting.
A full report will appear at a later date
Pictures of the visit
Fred, Anne (volunteer)and Chris in Brent private tentants rights offices
Chris and Fred with Jacky (centre) and two co workers at Brent P.T.R.G offices.
Talking with Brent Council officer.
Chris Fred and Jacky at Mahatma Ghandi House (Brent Council Housing offices)
Speaking with housing benefits officers in Brent
View from the Housing benefits training office on the eigth floor
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A third development group meeting was held on January 9th and an update to the progress
of the event in April was one of the main topics of discussion.
Fred and Chris reported that the advertising was well under way
with the posters for the buses going to print and postcard size adverts being designed.
These will go right across the town in shop windows, letting agents council buildings etc:
Also we were asked to put a link to the Council's Housing advice page on our web site
(See below, and under useful numbers page).
We are already receiving booking forms back for the event which is a very positive response.
Link to Council Housing Advice:-
http://www.blackpool.gov.uk/Housing/HousingAdvice
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Camden Private Tenants Conference 2009
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.