‘Social cleansing’

London councils ‘dumping’ poorest on Midlands

LONDON councils have been accused of ‘social cleansing’ by forcing their poorest families to move to the West Midlands.

New figures this week revealed that 181 of the capital’s most vulnerable families had been relocated to Birmingham and the West Midlands.

Some accused London of moving its poor out in a bid to gentrify certain suburbs.

Layla Abbes, a Liberal Demo- crat candidate for Wolverhampton City Council, said: “There’s a real issue of social cleansing going on, which means thousands of needy and vulnerable people are being dumped in the Midlands.”

LONDON councils have uprooted 181 families and sent them to the West Midlands to avoid spiralling rent costs in the capital.

By far the majority – 126 households – have been relocated to Birmingham, placing further pressure on already scarce housing here, new figures reveal.

Based on an average household of 2.5 people, an estimated total of 452 people from London have been forced to relocate to the region.

It means added pressure on classroom sizes and GP surgery lists.

Wolverhampton Liberal Democrats secured the data following a Freedom of Information Act request to all London Boroughs.

The councils, who have a duty to house their homeless families, have increasingly looked to cut costs in recent years by renting cheaper properties in the Midlands and north. The policy has also been slammed as ‘social cleansing’ and critics claim it is a back door attempt to gentrify areas of London by moving out low income families.

But supporters say it can free up larger homes for families.

The numbers of families uprooted from London to each West Midlands authority area over the past four years are:

126 to Birmingham

23 to Wolverhampton

16 to Telford and Wrekin

9 to West Bromwich and Sandwell

3 to Walsall

3 to Wyre Forest

Since 2012 the councils no longer have to find social housing places and can use private landlords.

The new arrivals are not entitled to council or social housing here and are moved into private rented homes.

Liberal Democrat candidate for Wolverhampton’s Oxley ward, Layla Abbes, said: “This shows that London is kicking the poorest out of the city and is forcing them to uproot and come and live in the Midlands.

“There’s a real issue of social cleansing going on, which means thousands of needy people and vulnerable people are being dumped in the Midlands. The result of these relocations is huge pressure on local services that care barely cope. A lethal cocktail of factors in London is having an impact here in Wolverhampton.”

She added: “Labour authorities in the Midlands, especially ones like Wolverhampton, are just mute or look the other way as it’s Labour councils in the capital doing this.

“There is no reason for people to have to leave London. This is just scandalous.”

But Birmingham City Council’s Labour leader Ian Ward said that they had raised the issue in 2013 and secured an agreement with London Boroughs which means that although they cannot stop families being moved, they are at least informed.

Cllr Ward added: “We are aware of these people being relocated.

“But it needs to be remembered that it was the Coalition Government which created this growing housing crisis under which councils are struggling to cope. There were 79,000 families, including 128,000 children, living in temporary housing in the UK during the last three months of last year. That is the scale of the problem we are dealing with.”

Such is the demand for housing in Birmingham that the city council was last year forced to temporarily accommodate homeless families in budget hotels as far afield as Stokeon-Trent. It now has plans to refurbish a rundown tower block in Nechells as temporary homeless accommodation.

In 2015 the Post revealed that families from Wandsworth were paid up to £7,000 to move to Birmingham, depending on the size of London property they were vacating.

Some London boroughs have previously argued they encourage people to move to areas where they have a family or other link.

There’s social cleansing going on, which means thousands of needy people are being dumped in the Midlands Layla Abbes, Liberal Democrats