End ‘no-fault evictions’

• COUNCIL leader Georgia Gould is absolutely right to highlight the role that the “increasing expensiveness” and lack of security in the private rented sector plays in preventing many people who live in this type of housing from starting a family in Camden, (Official: St Dominic’s Primary School to close after 154 years, March 30).

We also made the point at the recent We Make Camden event organised by the council, that unaffordable rents, coupled with short-term and insecure tenancies, means that many private tenants will struggle to develop any sense of being members of the community, because the “place they call home” is unlikely to be in Camden for any sustained period of time.

The reason why this is so concerning is that private tenants now make up 35.9 per cent of households in the borough according to the 2021 Census, a figure which will only grow over the coming years.

The council also highlighted in its State of the Borough 2023 report that it has to deal with the fifth largest population churn in the UK, with around 30 per cent of its residents changing every year.

It is for these reasons that this organisation, and one of our projects, Renters’ Rights London, have been working extremely hard as part of the Renters’ Reform Coalition to get the government’s Renters Reform Bill made into law and to end “no-fault evictions”, that it first pledged to do back in 2019.

At the recent Renters’ Day of Action in Westminster, that we took part in alongside a number of Camden private tenants, we also spoke to one of our MPs, Tulip Siddiq, about our fears that parts of the bill, such as those that introduce new “grounds” for possession, strongly favour landlords over tenants, in what the coalition believes is a clear attempt to pacify the landlord lobby and their supporters in parliament.

ROBERT TAYLOR
Organiser, Camden Federation of Private Tenants, NW5