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General Election 2015: Council letter encouraging tenants to move from London to Birmingham accused of 'social cleansing'

One woman who received the letter said it made her feel as though she was 'not wanted'

Roisin O'Connor
Wednesday 06 May 2015 11:03 BST
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A report by the director of Housing and Community Services says the council aims to move 600 'under occupiers' over the next three years
A report by the director of Housing and Community Services says the council aims to move 600 'under occupiers' over the next three years

A London council has been accused of "social cleansing" after a letter encouraging tenants to move from London to Birmingham was shared by hundreds of people on social media.

Sent by Wandsworth Council, the letter states that the council has a number of private sector properties "within the areas either directly within or near the surrounding areas of Birmingham".

It tells the recipient that the council would pay the tenant/s for "bedrooms given up", as well as helping with the cost of moving.

The letter is alleged to target pensioners in particular due to the fact that they are exempt from the bedroom tax.

A photo of the letter was posted on Twitter by Labour's Parliamentary Candidate for Battersea Will Martindale, who claimed the woman who received it said it made her feel "not wanted" in her local area.

"It's just wrong to pressure local families to leave Battersea and move to Birmingham,” he told The Independent. "The real answer is to build more homes that local people can afford to rent and buy.

"This Tory council is out of control. First, they moved local homeless families to Leicester and Portsmouth.

"Now they offer some of our most vulnerable residents cash to move 100 miles away from their jobs, friends and schools."

A report by the director of Housing and Community Services on the "Wandsworth Moves and Mobility Scheme", seen by The Independent, says the council aims to move 600 "under occupiers" – council tenants who are living in homes where not all of the bedrooms are occupied – over the next three years.

A spokesman for Wandsworth Council said: "This is a scheme that has been in place in Wandsworth for many years. Every other London borough has a similar policy.

"What it does is provide choices and incentives for tenants in larger properties to hand them back so that they can be used to provide new social rented homes for families on waiting lists who may be living in overcrowded conditions and need a bigger property."

"Offering a financial incentive is one of the ways in which tenants who don’t need such big homes can be encouraged to give them up.

"As the letter makes crystal clear, it is not compulsory and no-one is forced to leave, but some residents are quite happy to move out of London because they may have family connections in other parts of the country or are looking to make a fresh start outside the capital."

A recent investigation by The Independent revealed that more than 50,000 families have been shipped out of London boroughs in the last three years.

The figures showed an unprecedented number of families who cannot afford to find homes in their local area being uprooted from their neighbourhoods and dumped further and further away from the capital.

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