Reid calls on SNP to stop £40 a week rent increase (North Tayside Liberal Democrats)

North Tayside Liberal Democrats <info@libdems.org.uk>

Reid calls on SNP to stop £40 a week rent increase

August 3, 2009 10:52 AM
Originally published by Scottish Liberal Democrats

Alan Reid, Liberal Democrat MP for Argyll & Bute, called on the Scottish Government and Argyll & Bute Council to step in and stop the threatened £40 a week increase in rents faced by tenants of ACHA's sheltered houses.

Mr Reid was speaking after receiving a reply from the Council to his plea for the Council to restore the Supporting People grant that it used to give ACHA to help pay for the cost of running its sheltered houses.

Alan Reid said;

"I am very disappointed that the Council are refusing to help. Their reply to me was more interested in trying to find out who had complained to me about the proposed rent increase than in trying to help the sheltered housing tenants.

"The SNP are in power in both the Scottish Government and Argyll & Bute Council. They are the party with the purse strings. They should restore ACHA's Supporting People grant and stop the rent increase. When the Council transferred its housing stock to ACHA, they promised tenants a better service, not cuts in the warden service and £40 a week rent rises.

"The Council's SNP/Independent Administration are now threatening to privatise all their elderly care services. I hope that the reductions in the warden service and the huge rent increases are not a taste of what other elderly people will be faced with if the SNP go ahead with their plans to privatise all the Council's elderly care services. I have written to the Council asking for assurances that this pattern will not be repeated for other elderly care services should the SNP privatisation plans go ahead."

Notes:

ACHA has consulted its sheltered housing tenants on the proposed rent increased of up to £40 a week. The final decision will be taken at their Board meeting on 13 August 2009.

The sheltered houses affected are at Caledonia Court, Ardrishaig, Chalmers Court, Inveraray, Cragroy, Port Riddell, Dunoon, Dunmar Court, Oban, Elder Crescent, Bowmore, Ferfadd Court, Rothesay, Ford Spence Court, Benderloch, MacDougall Place, Bunessan, McCracken Court, Lochgilphead, Wallace Court, Sandbank and Lochgair Place, Tarbert.