LIVERPOOL has been plunged into its biggest-ever housing crisis, with almost 21,000 people waiting in the queue for homes, a city councillor warned last night.
Cllr Steve Radford, leader of the minority Liberal group said the situation will become even worse when 5,000 tenants who need to be decanted to alternative homes join the list.
The waiting list is growing at the rate of up to 50 applicants a week, council assistant executive director Cath Green admitted in a report to Cllr Radford.
Cllr Radford believed the council's decision to demolish dwellings instead of repairing them is the reason behind the rapid increase in demand for homes.
He said: "The council is spending £42m of taxpayers' money to demolish housing but we need renovation not demolition. They are driving people out of the city.
"Every week I see three or four families who are desperate to be rehoused, people are waiting for up to eight years for even the most unpopular houses - it's a crisis."
One of the biggest problems for council housing is the huge cost of repair, running into hundreds of millions of pounds.
Preparations are being made for a ballot of the remaining 8,000 council house tenants in Liverpool to decide whether they want their homes to be switched to a newly established social landlord, Liverpool Mutual Homes. They have promised to spend £300m on renovating the homes.
News RSS Feed