Hundreds of private tenants in Telford requesting help due to 'poor housing conditions'

Telford & Wrekin Council’s Better Homes for All programme was introduced in 2018 in a bid to improve conditions in the private rental sector and ‘tackle rogue landlords’ in the borough.

In the last 12 months the council has received 489 requests for help from tenants – an increase of 30 per cent on previous years.

A report to the council’s cabinet this week provides an update for the Better Homes for All scheme over the last 12 months.

The scheme has carried out 300 inspections during this time identifying 511 hazards, including falls, damp and mould and fire.

The council scheme has also carried out an additional 50 ‘proactive property inspections’ linked with the Safer Streets Programme.

“Where education and encouragement do not work, through the Better Homes for All programme we are committed to ensuring that we use the full force of the law on non-compliant and unscrupulous landlords who provide unsafe, unhealthy and sometimes dangerous conditions exploiting often vulnerable tenants who, for a number of reasons, do not have a voice of their own,” the report to cabinet states.

This has resulted in 140 enforcement notices over the last year and 12 Civil Penalty Notices as an alternative to prosecution.

There have been three prosecutions against landlords for ‘serious failures of housing health and safety laws.’

Statistics gathered in 2021 showed that 21.3 per cent of households (16,279) in Telford & Wrekin were privately renting compared with 16.2 per cent (10,793) in 2011.

The highest proportion of these were in Woodside where 40.2per cent (1,115 households) were privately rented.

During the last year, the council has responded following the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in Rochdale due to a respiratory condition caused by the damp and mould growth in the property he lived.

“Locally following the coroner’s findings in late 2022, we immediately responded by sending out comms to all our residents warning of the dangers of living in damp and mouldy conditions and asked residents to contact us if they had concerns about their housing conditions,” the report added.

“We set up a duty desk to deal with the increase in calls and requests for service. We have since dealt with 123 requests for service for damp and mould growth alone.”

The report adds that following a fatality in a Hollinswood flat the council has set up a multi-agency taskforce to inspect all flats in the area.

They have identified fire safety issues in the communal areas and are working with the fire service to improve issues informally.

“We are also working on an enforcement plan for where compliance is not forthcoming informally,” the report adds.

As part of the Better Homes for All programme 137 long-term empty properties have been brought back into use – against a five-year target of 375.

Commenting on the report councillor Richard Overton, cabinet member for homes and enforcement said: “Through the Better Homes for All programme we’re continuing to improve housing conditions across Telford and Wrekin in the private rental sector.

“We’re making best use of our existing homes and are working with tenants, landlords and partners to raise standards and make our neighbourhoods great places to live.

“We remain committed to tackling rogue landlords across the borough but our enforcement policy aims to educate and encourage landlords first before we move to enforcement.

“We introduced our landlord tenant co-ordinator service in 2022 which is supporting landlords and tenants – helping them to resolve issues before other council services need to get involved.”