Councillor Douglas Johnson wrote this letter to the Sheffield Star after Labour and LibDem councillors voted against legal aid for private renters.
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Dear Editor,
Councillors last week welcomed the new Renters’ Rights Act. This new piece of law could really help lots of tenants who are renting in the private sector.
We know that many private landlords provide a perfectly acceptable standard of housing, but many do not. Poor quality housing and ignoring requests for repairs mean people live in cold, expensive housing. That has a very bad impact on physical and mental health.
Councillors expressed concern at the lack of power to challenge poor conditions. The Council’s Private Sector Housing team already responds to requests from tenants in the private sector who face health and safety hazards in their homes. They do a great job. But there is also the need for tenants to get advice on their housing rights. There used to be several advice centres in Sheffield that could provide this advice under legal aid but the voluntary sector was very badly hit by the Government’s cuts to advice and legal aid from 2013 onwards.
Legal aid for housing cases was a surprisingly low-cost way of empowering renters and getting improvements in their living conditions.
That’s why Green councillors also asked to recognise the need for adequate legal aid and representation. It was very sad to see both Labour and LibDem councillors join together to vote against this. Laws to protect renters are meaningless without giving tenants the power to use them.
Cllr Douglas Johnson
Sheffield Green Party
Note: the Greens’ amendment highlighted “the lack of adequate legal aid and representation” as one aspect of the lack of power or rights to challenge poor private rented housing conditions.
