When a house is not a home...

I have been left feeling shocked and angry by what I have seen and heard today.

Shocked by yet another story of real hardship as experienced by a young family in my ward.

Angry, at yet another example of Labour politicians taking their eye of the ball on something important- or worse, neglecting the very people they were supposed to be elected to serve.

Let me set the scene for you: family x who live in the Hexham Road area are officially overcrowded - so much so that one of the parents is forced to sleep in a children's bunkbed in a room with three children under five.

They have done what the Council encourages tenants to do and have been bidding like mad for a bigger place. This family are not fussy and are happy to move anywhere in Reading - from Caversham to Tilehurst.

Four children have asthma and because they are young and inclined to be exuberant neighbours have complained about the noise.

But the trouble is they are not getting anywhere.

The mother,27, (who was given my details by another constituent I was able to help) is fed up of battling with the Council and has told me she has given up. Officers in Reading have indicated she has no hope of moving to a larger property and to be fair to them, their hands are tied.

Yet, she is encouraged to keep on bidding for a dwindling pool of properties along with hundreds of other families across the Town.

Thanks to the calamatous Right to Buy policy introduced by the Tories in the 1980s and the fact that the Labour government stopped building council houses, there are no larger 'family-sized' properties left in Reading any more.

Ms x would like her family to be able to stay in Reading - where she was born - but in desperation she has applied to go on the Council house waiting list in Oxford.

Somehow she has ended up higher up the housing waiting list there than in Reading. Crazy.

But overcrowding is not the only problem facing this family.

I was taken to look at the bathroom and saw ancient toilet and rotten radiator. If you switch on the boiler it shuts off all the electrics so they try not to use it.

They reported all these problems to the Council, over a period of years, but nothing has been done.

I was disgusted.

What's worse is that I know this situation is not unique. On my way home I bumped into another family who are also overcrowded.

I speak to families virtually every week who are stuck in cramped, unsuitable accomodation.

And this is just in one ward in Reading.

Across the Borough, who knows how many people are affected?

And I don't care what anyone says, many properties are frankly not fit for human habitation.

If decent homes and decent housing means anything it must mean an end to bathrooms like the one I saw today.

I would like to ask any local Labour councillors reading this: how would you feel if a member of your family was forced to live in accomodation like this?

One can only imagine what the impact bad housing is having on children. But we know.

Children's health in areas like Hexham Road is nowhere near as good as that found in wealthier parts of the Borough. This is why I will be leading a Scrutiny Review into the link between deprivation and children's health later this year.

I know from talking to people that the situation I encountered today is just the tip of the iceberg.

People who contact me are the lucky ones and usually I am able to help. I will not rest until the family I met today at a minimum have all outstanding repairs to their properties dealt with. That's my job.

But what about all the families who don't know who to go to, in wards where councillors do not respond?

Private landlords and housing associations are one thing (and I've been campaigning for better standards there) but when Reading Borough Council is the landlord I think tenants should expect better.

If any Council officers are reading this I would like them to hear what my constituent said to me today:

"The only time I hear from the Council is when they want to do a gas check"

This is not what the relationship between a local authority - the landlord - and its tenants should be like.

And this is the Council, run by Labour, for years, that wants to introduce new service charges for tenants like this.

It's true, many tenants will not pay anything (who are in receipt of housing benefit).

But for those that will have to pay, the question we need to be asking is why should tenants pay more when basic repairs are not sorted out efficiently and in a timely fashion?

RBC has been forced to introduce charging because it is short of cash after subsidising the Treasury to the tune of £5.5 million pounds this year alone.

The Labour government had 12 years to reform the appalling housing finance system in this country. And they did nothing.

They also had 12 years to help councils build new council housing. Instead, they allowed developers to build thousands of 2-bed rabbit-hutches and sat back while the waiting list for social housing grew and grew.

I have written today to the Head of Housing to ask her what she is doing to make sure that families and individuals are not waiting months and in many cases years for repairs to Council properties to be sorted out.

Sadly, I do not have the power as a local councillor to ask the Council to build larger family houses in my ward, where they are badly needed.

One thing is clear, a Labour government and a Labour-run Council has failed Council tenants in areas such as Hexham Road.

Labour politicians locally asked for their votes and promised them good quality housing and 'decent homes'.  Promises, that in many parts of Reading have not been fulflilled.

Despite all the money that has been spent by this Labour government and the pledges that were made at election time there are still families living in homes in Reading not to fit to live in.

We will keep working in Redlands to represent all the tenants and residents who have been let down by Labour.

Comments

(I would like to ask any local Labour councillors reading this: how would you feel if a member of your family was forced to live in accomodation like this?)

Why on earth would a LABOUR Cllr want to do that? They're the new middle class don't you know.