Council Flats Unfit For Families

by liamssoft | June 7, 2007 at 11:04 am

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When you have a problem with council accommodation, if your council cant or wont help you there is always your local Member of Parliament. In this case MP Sally Keeble is trying to persuade Northampton borough council to do something about overcrowding and drug abuse in three council owned blocks of flats in Northampton town.

DOZENS of young families are being forced to live in overcrowded blocks of council bedsits, designed for one person only, surrounded by drugs, anti-social behaviour and crime.

Northampton North MP Sally Keeble is now calling for the new Northampton Borough Council administration to take action and convert three blocks of bedsit housing into family accommodation to solve the problem and to hand over the running of the blocks to housing associations.

Mrs Keeble said the three blocks –Robinson House, in Lumbertubs, Paget House, in Kings Heath, and Caledonian House, in St James – were unfit for families to live in, in size, safety and quality.

But the council had still let out a number of the bedsits to families, often with two or more children.

She said: "What is happening in these blocks is a disgrace. In Robinson House the appallingly overcrowded conditions in which people are living is leading to problems of condensation, damp and mould growth. There is active evidence of very substantial drug abuse which should not be tolerated in council premises