Day: October 4, 2012

Labour: getting noisier on housing
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It’s now five years since I first attended party conferences for my job, and I’ve noted some quite different atmospheres over the years.

The 2009 party conferences were the most striking: the quietly confident Conservative conference where champagne was strictly off limits, Labour’s failed coups and sense of impending downfall, and the pre-Cleggmania stoicism at Lib Dems. All this with the backdrop of the MPs’ expense scandal rumbling on.

Fast forward to 2012 and it’s quite a different … Read more

Rogue landlords: a growing problem
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At Shelter we consistently point out that renting is the ‘new normal’ for a whole generation priced out of buying a home. Along with the pressures of rising rents and letting agent fees comes the dark underbelly of private renting: rogue landlords. This unscrupulous minority are flourishing as competition for rented homes leaves people on modest incomes with no choice but to rent from them.

The latest figures from our freedom of information request to councils show that complaints about … Read more