Special ‘hit squads’ should be set up by the local authorities in Glasgow to break the back of the slum landlord problem in Govanhill.
This is the view of Scottish Housing Minister Alex Neil after an evidence session on the slum housing in the area was held at a Public Petitions Committee meeting on Tuesday 2 March.
Anne Lear, the director of Govanhill Housing Association, had submitted a petition on behalf of the Govanhill Housing Association urging the Scottish Government to conduct an inquiry into the responsibilities of private landlords, below-standard social housing and the impact of slum living conditions on the health and well-being of residents.
The meeting heard that some living conditions in the area were ‘totally unacceptable for the 19th, never mind the 21st Century’. As a result Neil said he would consider granting councils additional powers. He said: “The kind of imaginative initiative I would like us to look at is the possibility, for example, of establishing a special hit squad.”
One of its roles would to ensure landlords were complying with the registration scheme brought in to protect tenants from rogue landlords.
Lear believes the area should have some kind of special status and explained: “There is nowhere else in Scotland that has 1,200 unimproved properties, 75 percent at least of which are owned by the private sector and are not being regulated.”
Prior to the meeting Committee Convener Frank McAveety MSP said: “Govanhill presents a particular housing challenge and this is a petition on behalf of local residents asking for help from national and local government. The hope is that they will be listened to by the key decision-makers.”
The aim of the Public Petitions Committee meeting was to produce evidence and highlight key issues which the Local Government and Communities Committee may wish to consider further as part of its scrutiny of the Housing (Scotland) Bill.
The Scottish Government introduced the Bill on 13 January 2010 and its principal policy objectives are to improve the value that social housing delivers for tenants and taxpayers, to safeguard the supply of that housing for the benefit of future generations of tenants, and to improve conditions in private-sector housing.
The Bill seeks to achieve its policy objectives by modernising the regime for regulating social landlords (local-authority landlords and registered social landlords), reforming the right to buy social housing, and amending the law on registering private landlords, licensing houses in multiple occupation and dealing with disrepair in private housing.
