A social landlord in Merseyside has come up with an innovative way to dodge the controversial bedroom tax.
Magenta Living plans to move around 200 outside bathrooms into properties, in place of a bedroom. This move would mean tenants were not under-occupying properties and so they could avoid the extra payment.
Brian Simpson, Magenta Living’s chief executive, said: “We are developing a scheme to relocate poorly insulated prefabricated bathroom units which were fitted many years ago to the rear of some houses into the inside of these homes.
“The consequence of this work will be that the number of bedrooms will be reduced in these properties.”
Labour MP for Birkenhead, Frank Field, described the idea as a “first class move” that had his support.
He said: “The bedroom tax is iniquitous and Magenta is clearly undertaking this review with tenants in mind and I think they need to be applauded."
Magenta Living is Wirral’s biggest social landlord and has more than 12,000 properties across the region. The bedroom-to-bathroom adaptions are expected to affect about 200 homes.
Introduced on 1 April, the “bedroom tax” aimed to reduce over occupancy in social housing. A household with one spare room would see their housing benefit cut by 14% and two spare rooms 25%.
Under the rules single adults and couples are allowed a room each. Children under 16 of the same sex have to share while under-10s of both sexes must share.
A DWP spokesman said: “It is simply not affordable to pay housing benefit for people to have spare rooms.”
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Comments
They are NOT outside privvies (with or without a bath)!! They were built of non-brick construction onto the outside of acouncil house, usually on the first floor with access from inside the house (most often from the top of the stairs). You can recongise them because they often have white uPVC cladding. They are not particuarly well insulated, but then you go into the bathroom to use it and then leave again, not to linger there, so they are quite acceptable. To deliberately reduce the nation's bedroom stock by building in a (second) toilet in a unused bedroom which someone would be glad to sleep in is immoral, if not criminal.
Outside bathrooms?
I was brought up in the deprived 1950's and we had an outside privvy at my grans when we lived with her for a while, but I never had an outside bath.
Sounds like this should have been done years ago instead of cramming extra tenants inside the house
Pity it needs the threat of financial costs to make Landlords improve their properties when they should be doing so anyway