Activists have accused a Labour council of failing renters and “siding with criminal landlords.”

Acorn – which describes itself as a renters’ union – makes the accusation on the basis that while there were 430 complaints from private tenants to the city council in the last year, but only 18 improvement notices served.

In addition, no landlords have been prosecuted by Oxford council in the past three years.

The council says it uses a range of tools to monitor the private rental sector and to improve housing standards but the activists insist the council should send formal improvement notices at the earliest opportunity, push for the biggest fines and refuse licenses to landlords who have had improvement notices served against them.

The Green Party has backed the Acorn protest, turning it into a party political issue with a spokesperson telling the Oxford Mail: “Oxford City’s Labour party has only prosecuted a handful of landlords in the last five years, and Greens have persistently called for funding stricter renting enforcement so everyone can live in our city with safety and dignity.”

Meanwhile an Acorn spokesperson comments: “Our members have faced really shocking treatment in Oxford, and have been left to live in dangerous homes, with things like serious damp and mould and collapsing ceilings.

“They’ve also been victims of revenge eviction, when people are thrown out of their homes by their landlords and given a ‘no fault’ eviction, just for raising complaints with them.

“Oxford City Council are not doing enough to protect renters from this really appalling treatment.

“Rather than issuing formal notices that compel the landlords to do the repairs, they are issuing informal notices, even with really serious complaints.”