Landlord problems? Sian Berry launches Big Renters Survey to look into London’s private renting crisis
Looking into the issue: London Assembly Member Sian Berry at a letting agents’ window. Photograph: Sian Berry
Renting in Hackney?
Green party London Assembly Member Sian Berry is calling for views from people renting privately – whether about costs or contracts, letting agents, maintenance or repairs.
Her Big Renters Survey, which launched today, aims to collect evidence, views and stories to do with the capital’s private renting market.
Ms Berry, who is also a local councillor in the borough of Camden , is no stranger to the difficulties faced by private renters.
She said: “As a private renter, like 2.3 million other Londoners, I know that the insecurity, cost and lack of control over your living arrangements can take its toll.
“My flat’s toilet is never properly fixed by my landlord and has just broken again.
“I’ve shelled out more than half my pay in rent and lived in six different houses and flats since I moved to London.
“Hackney rents average £1,625 per month. That’s 67 per cent of average household take-home pay in the borough.”
She added: “If you are – or have ever been – a private renter in Hackney, please take three minutes to fill in my Big Renters Survey today.
Tell me about your repair nightmares, how you’ve been treated by landlords and letting agents, and how you think a renters union could help.
“Share the survey with your friends and help me get the widest range of views to push the mayor and the government for better rights and better support for private renters like you and me.”
This is obviously a good step.
However the issues on Housing Crisis are far too deeply involved with the role of the
local Councils and of the GLA and of the DCLG than are acknowledged in the script, de facto,
that Ms Berry has designed her “survey” on.
Housing is NOT a tick-box matter and by definition nor is the renting aspect of the Housing Crisis.
Neither Sadiq Khan nor any member of the London Assembly, so far, has made the necessary
case for Council Housing, Social Housing and Accountability by the state at all elevates for Society.
Ticking a box here and making a stunt there will not do.
Hackney is not exceptional when it comes to the local Council being a main causer of the Housing Crisis in its area.
By “causer” I emphatically mean the lack of Democratically accountable audit of what is going on in the Community.
The starkness of that lack, that absence is in the antidemocratic post and privileges of the executive mayor.
Having less Democratic Say is a direct causer of crises that are evident in Housing now.
But other parts of POVERTY are also directly linked to the lack of a Democratic Local Council.
Extend the ,logic and you find the same in the behaviour of MPs.
They mouth platitudes and do not actually take part in fights.
Such as actually beginning to join the targets of Evictions at every stage of the fight.
Has Ms Berry been to an “EVICTION COURT” hearing recently?
If so, I would like to hear what she has found.
Likewise, I would want to hear her publicly report on what she knows local Councils such as Hackney are intentionally doing to create housing shortages, housing crises and housing distability to targeted persons, groups, families.
The word “Policy” may occur as a cover for these antisocial crimes by local London Councils.
What in the context of her “survey” does Ms Berry think of what Camden Council did in the past when it (Camden Council) pushed “Irish” people into homelessness and denied them rights to housing services and support?
That was typical of Camden Council’s behaviour.
That was decades ago and today’ “renters” “problems” can be traced back to then and even further back into the past.
Camden was one of many London Councils that were engaged in brazenly criminal al behaviour, disguised under many pretexts, excuses and badges.
In the late 1980s, shortly after taking control of Tower Hamlets Council, the THEN SDP were caught plotting to perpetrate internal deportation of the “homeless” families as based on the ethnicity and similar.
I am, separately, writing to Ms Berry about these matters and asking her detailed Questions at her London Assembly Address and will report to your readers in due course.
1744 Hrs GMT London Tuesday 12 July 2016