Mystery shopper exposes failings in London boroughs on disability housing

This was one of the findings of a “mystery shopper” survey released this week by the specialist provider of wheelchair-accessible housing to highlight the degree of disregard for people with disabilities in the city.

The survey found that 30% of the capital’s 32 boroughs did not have a separate housing register for wheelchair-accessible property. Furthermore, some 30% of boroughs did not know exactly which adaptations were present in properties that had been adapted for people with disabilities, some of whose needs vary greatly from one person to another.

The association is campaigning for separate housing lists for wheelchair-accessible property and for disabled people to be offered such property before other people. It also wants building work to begin immediately to fill the shortfall in wheelchair-accessible housing.

Graham Nickson, public affairs officer, said: “Experience in Reading and Bradford has shown that accessible housing registers save money and use the existing housing stock more efficiently. You are recycling adaptations instead of putting them in at one property and then ripping them out when another family moves in.”

An amendment to the Housing Bill requiring councils to keep an accessible housing register was proposed in the Commons in February but voted down on the grounds that it was bureaucratic.

Brenda Ellis, director of policy and projects at Greater London Action on Disability, said: “Ripping out adaptations in one place and starting from scratch elsewhere must cost a fortune. It must make sense to keep a register. It is extremely disappointing that the government would block this.”

The amendment to the bill was due to be represented in the Lords this week. A spokesman for the ODPM said the government would not support an amendment in the Lords that it had rejected in the Commons.

Meanwhile, the Greater London Authority is researching the feasibility of a city-wide register of accessible housing.