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A blistering letter: Are Birmingham’s council officers to blame for our exempt accommodation crisis?

Tribune Sun
Cllrs Shuranjeet Singh and Marcus Bernasconi.

‘Our streets are overrun with criminality linked to these properties, and the housing benefit team descends further into chaos’

The Dispatch has seen a letter, sent by two Labour councillors to Liberal Democrat council leader Roger Harmer, accusing council officers in Birmingham of failing to take basic measures to block the exploitative housing providers blighting the city. In response, Harmer has described their claims as “outrageous”. 

“Council officers are consistently telling you and the Cabinet that there is nothing they can do, while they continue to rubber stamp claims every single day, “ the letter — from councillors Shuranjeet Singh and Marcus Bernasconi — reads. “Meanwhile, our streets are overrun with criminality linked to these properties, and the housing benefit team descends further into chaos as it finds it cannot scrutinise over 33,000 live claims.”

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