Councillors in Oxford are claiming cuts to Local Housing Allowance could bring traffic chaos to the city! Councillors predict that cuts in housing benefit will drive many tenants away from the city in search of cheaper rents. They then claim the tenants will cause traffic jams in central Oxford when they drive back into the city to transport their children to school.
Councillors from across all parties on Oxfordshire County Council have come together to support a motion condemning the cut in housing allowance.
From April the allowance for a four bedroom property dropped from £323.08 per week to £288.46, while all tenants in a shared home have seen a £85.38 housing benefit payment drop to £78.56. These new rates will immediately affect all new applicants while existing applicants are not expected to be affected until 2012.
Val Smith, a Labour councillor, said “There will be an increase in traffic and an increase in people travelling to work. We all know of Oxford’s horrendous traffic and every little extra problem makes it worse. The migration of tenants to cheaper towns is going to put a strain on services there. It will also have an effect on school places and health services. They just do not have the services we are geared up to give in the city.”
The Coalition say that these cuts will force landlords to reduce rents, but since the cuts were first announced, landlords have always said this will not happen as they still have their own bills such as landlord insurance to pay. Councillors don’t believe landlords will lower rents because of the high demand for homes and they feel Oxford tenants should get higher cash support than other parts of the country. They fear people on benefits will no longer be able to live in Oxford and it will undermine their childcare, family life and support.