Landlords fight racial tension as BNP fields 221 council candidates

Many landlords fear that, with the far-right British National Party fielding a record 221 candidates in the 1 May poll – four times as many as stood in 2001 – years of grass-roots work on community cohesion will go to waste.

Far-right campaigning often targets areas of social deprivation or estates with a high ethnic mix, and has brought tension to areas with no history of such problems, such as the South-west.

Bristol-based Knightstone Housing Association is distributing leaflets on the issue to the 200 houses on its Stockwood estate, a BNP target area.

Knightstone director Jayne Whittlestone said: "We just want to spell out the facts. Without being overtly political, we will explain our allocations policy and provide accurate numbers."

Sunderland is one of the worst-affected areas, with the BNP contesting all 25 council seats. In total, there are 54 BNP candidates standing in the North-east.

John Craggs, group strategy executive of Sunderland Housing Group, which took over the council stock two years ago, said political extremists played on tension caused by the dispersal of asylum seekers around the UK.

He said: "We are careful not to politicise things. We tell our staff the truth and quantify and explain the number of asylum seekers.

Many of our successes are dwarfed by the problems stoked up by the BNP

John Craggs, Sunderland Housing

"Many of our successes are dwarfed by the problems that are stoked up by the BNP."

The BNP has 23 candidates standing for election in the West Midlands, compared with five two years ago.

National Housing Federation regional officer Chris Downes said local housing workers were aware of the problem and were working to deal with it. He said: "[Far-right campaigning] is about fanning the flames and deliberately causing issues. It can be quite difficult for our members, who are working towards building a neighbourhood focus. They are working with community bodies to make sure we are all alive to the problem."

In Birmingham, where five BNP members are standing, housing associations said they had got off lightly compared with other areas of the country. But Jas Baines, director of Birmingham-based black and ethnic minority association Ashram, said the presence of any extremist political groups was cause for concern. He said: "We have got to engender trust and confidence-building. The very presence of the far right is extremely unhelpful."

Bishop David Walker, a member of the government policy action team on housing management, suggested housing workers fight racism by joining public debate.