Rural dwellers to be forced out by bedroom tax
This is serious stuff and is having a negative impact on already challenged housing agendas in rural England. The ACRE article tells us:
The ‘bedroom tax’ will lead to the break-up of rural communities who are bearing the brunt of benefit cuts, a leading rural network has warned.
Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) says the Government’s under-occupation charge for social housing tenants will force people to leave the villages where they grew up.
The charity says a dearth of one and two-bedroom homes in the countryside means rural tenants have no choice but to move into towns and cities if they cannot make up the rent shortfall.
ACRE claims the Government failed to ‘rural proof’ the penalty, which cuts the benefits of tenants of working age in homes deemed to have spare rooms.
It is backing the call by the Commons Committee for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to exclude settlements of fewer than 3,000 people from the charge.
ACRE, the umbrella body for England’s 38 rural community councils, surveyed its members to assess the impact of the tax, which cuts housing benefit by an average of £14 a week.
Chief Executive Janice Banks said: “The Department of Work and Pensions forecast in its impact assessment that the policy could have a greater impact on rural areas because there are fewer appropriate size homes available locally.
“Yet it went ahead with a blanket approach which will inevitably force rural tenants out of villages where they have lived for years, taking them away from their extended families, schools and support networks. It will take key workers away from areas where they perform vital roles.