Landlords have warned of a sharp rise in the number of squeezed social housing tenants reporting mould and damp problems because they cannot afford to heat their homes. Rising energy bills and increasing fuel poverty are being blamed for a surge in the number of calls to landlords across the UK to deal with mould, damp and condensation compared with previous winters. Mould, which damages properties and tenants’ health, can increase in the winter if homes are not sufficiently heated because water vapour and condensation can build up. Aragon Housing Association, a subsidiary of 10,000-home Grand Union Housing Group, received 76 requests from tenants for mould and damp inspections last month, a 300 per cent increase on the 19 received in November last year. First Ark Group, the parent company of 14,000-home Knowsley Housing Trust, said tenant requests for damp inspections had doubled from 20 last November to 40 last month. Aileen Davis, managing director of Aragon, said: ‘People cannot afford to heat their homes and are having to make the choice as to whether to eat or heat.’ A spokesperson for First Ark said this ‘could be due to the increase in costs for gas and electricity’. In a survey of 30 landlords this month, Direct Works Forum, a consultancy which represents social landlords’ in-house maintenance teams, found 90 per cent had ‘encountered an increase in condensation problems since fuel poverty began to bite’. Keith Simpson, chair of the DWF, said condensation was being raised as an ‘exceptional issue’ by its members for the first time in its 14-year history. ‘It has obviously been triggered by the fairly recent huge hikes in energy prices driving tenants into fuel poverty and the recent introduction of welfare reform,’ he said. Melanie Rees, policy services manager at the Chartered Institute of Housing also reported hearing ‘anecdotal evidence’ of an increased problem. She added that many social landlords have invested in new heating systems, ‘but that makes no difference if people cannot afford to use the new systems’. Shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds said: ‘At Christmas time, families want to be coming together in a warm home not one that’s damp and mouldy because they can’t afford to pay their energy bills.’ A spokesperson for the department of energy and climate change said: ‘The government is providing specific help to reduce the impact of energy bills on 26 million British households meaning that the typical bill next year will be reduced by around £50 on average, compared to what would otherwise happen without these changes.’Energy charges can be reduced and health bettered and structural integrity increased by getting rid of rising damp. Damp walls make it harder to heat a house therefor increasing energy bills, get rid of damp, reduce energy bills and save money....we have the answer 34 people reached
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 07:36:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015