Published: February 23, 2012
by TOM FOOT

HOUSING chiefs are under pressure to call an immediate halt to “crippling” rent rises for council tenants.

The Camden Federation of Tenants voted to call for a “pause” in plans to increase rents for working council tenants by 8.1 per cent at a meeting in Somers Town on Monday.

The changes – which will amount to on average £10 extra a week – will hit around one third of Camden’s council tenants who do not receive housing benefit.

The Town Hall is blaming the rent hike on cuts to the budget ordered by central government.

Petra Dando, from Camden’s association of street properties, told the meeting: “I am hearing from people who are turning their heating off for three to four hours a day and getting under the duvet. I have spoken to an elderly couple who are switching off their telephone because they are worried about what is going to happen to them.

“I don’t think the council realise how very out of touch they are with what is going on on the ground. All I hear is point-scoring from politicians. It’s just a cop out.”

Around 20 tenants at the meeting in the Somers Town Community Centre voted unanimously to call on the council to stop the increase going through and to take the fight to Conservative housing minister Grant Shapps.

Labour councillors think the idea of prising more money out of Whitehall is unrealistic.

Housing chief Councillor Julian Fulbrook said: “It is particularly difficult to lobby this particular government.

“There are an awful lot of people who are going to have a terrible time. There is no question of that. But in my view there is no alternative.”

Conservative group leader Councillor Andrew Mennear told the meeting: “My understanding is that there is a question about whether the council has to go the whole hog in this year or if it can be step-changed.

“Presumably they are doing this so that in years closer to the council elections it won’t be so bad.”

He added that there had to be a balance between the amount ­people pay into the welfare state and the amount taken out.

Lib Dem leader Councillor Keith Moffitt said: “This [8.1 per cent] is just a government guideline. We don’t think the council has explored all the alternatives.

“We are talking about the poorest people in work, who just fall above the benefit line.”

He said it was legally possible not to implement the rent rise.

Natalie Bennett, from the Green Party, said she had spoken to a woman who had a £10 budget for food and that the 8.1 per cent increase would simply wipe that out.

The average weekly council rent is £99, the meeting heard.