MP slams subsidy for ‘slum’ landlords

A new scheme launched to help landlords with housing repairs in Peterborough has been panned by the local MP.

Stewart Jackson MP used his Westminster Life column in the Peterborough Telegraph to have a dig at Peterborough City Council’s new initiative to assist what he described as “slum landlords” with housing repairs using £1.2m of public money from the capital budget.

He wrote: “Yes – these are landlords currently collecting rents for tenants already living in their substandard or dangerous properties – but who apparently cannot afford to repair and maintain their own properties properly or meet the appropriate regulatory and licensing arrangements.

“Apparently, we’re meant to be sympathetic to these folk who take issue with a basic requirement not to allow a property to be “seriously overcrowded!?!” 900 of them lacked gas safety certificates and worse. That’s YOUR money which could build new homes or give local working families a lift up by paying their deposit on a new house via rent or mortgage.

“Scrub that. I do know what I think. It stinks.”

Jackson suggested that it was a disgrace that these landlords “expect the taxpayer to foot the bill”, although they will pay a nominal management fee to the city council to collect the rent and pay back what he described as a “preferential loan” for works that they “should be undertaking themselves anyway”.

He continued: “Am I missing something? I think the technical term is “moral hazard”. What message does it send to good and ethical landlords in our city who presumably have to pay for the upkeep of their own properties which after all are their own capital assets? Isn’t it completely undermining the whole point of the licensing scheme, if we choose to reward slum landlords [at average £3,500 a pop] and allow them to stay and continue to ply their dubious trade in the lettings market?”

The MP said that the policy would not improve run down areas like Millfield, Eastgate and New England and simply showed how “out of touch” Peterborough City Council is regarding the concerns of “decent people” who live in these areas.

He continued: “Peterborough City Council thinks what we need is a lot of carrot but where’s the stick eh? Aren’t we embarrassed that our city has recently featured on Channel 5’s “Britain’s Rogue Landlords”? Why aren’t these people in court? Why are they not named and shamed? Why are their tenants more deserving than the hundreds on the housing waiting list to whom the money could be better directed?

“We need to know why paying out this cash will allegedly drive up health outcomes more than say allowing young couples to buy these houses and convert them at their own expense, thus improving the residential neighbourhoods?

“Are the applicants for this programme (dodgy landlords) self-selecting and what methodology has been used to assess their merits? How will the legal agreements and loan arrangements be prepared and at what cost? What pressure has been exerted on council officers? Why hasn’t this policy been properly debated by the City Council Cabinet?

“I fear that the council has taken a wrong turn and is failing to deal with the fundamentals.

“They are either committed to cleaning up slum tenancies and protecting tenants and improving neighbourhoods or they’re not.

“They need to reconsider this policy before it goes any further.” 

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.