Campaigners have won a partial victory in the fight to make councils reserve specially adapted homes for disabled people, rather than giving them to people higher up on waiting lists.

Non-disabled tenants who occupy such homes as they become vacant often rip out the adaptations.

But ODPM minister Lord Rooker told the House of Lords last week that he would only be amending statutory guidance on allocations and would not amend the Housing Bill.

This means councils would be required to make a register of any empty adapted properties, but not of all adapted properties, as campaigners had sought.

Rooker admitted an amendment to the Housing Bill would be more forceful but said the guidance allowed for further consultation and could be more easily revised.

Virginia Shaw, director of the National Disabled Persons Housing Service, hailed the move as a “major step in the right direction”.

Source

Housing Today