Britain’s biggest energy supplier, British Gas, and homeless charity Shelter have announced a five year partnership. The campaign, called Better Homes for Britain, will commission the widest ever census of private rental living with the long term aim being improving standards in the privately rented sector. However, statistics used by the partnership to highlight housing problems has angered many holders of landlord insurance policies.
The figures being used by the partnership show 610,000 rental homes allegedly too cold, 879,000 damp or unsafe, and 327,700 being in urgent need of repair. However the RLA (Residential Landlords Association) has hit out at the selective use of the statistics. They point out that the same research also showed that 86% of private tenants are satisfied with their tenancy and their landlord. This, the RLA say, means that there is a higher proportion of satisfied tenants in the private sector than can be found in the social sector. They are also angry that there was no mention of the high number of private landlords who have become registered to accreditation schemes.
The Residential Landlords Association feel that the statistics quoted by British Gas and Shelter are misleading for a number of reasons. They claim that it makes no sense to align electrical safety, carbon monoxide and damp problems in the same category as causes of damp are numerous and may in fact be due to tenant behaviour such as them drying their washing indoors. They also point out that a rental home might be cold because the tenant cannot afford to turn heating on, and not because of lack of heating. They also accused both Shelter and British Gas of failing to recognise that 42% of privately rented properties were built before 1919.
Phil Bentley, managing director of British Gas, said “At British Gas, we visit 50,000 homes every day keeping our customers’ homes safe, warm and working. However, private rented homes are lagging behind owner-occupied homes and the social housing improvement programmes we support. Dilapidated properties with dangerous or inefficient old boilers and inadequate insulation are far too prevalent in the private rental sector. We need a culture of energy efficiency, and standards need to be raised.”