Campaign Update

The Coventry Against the Bedroom Tax campaign is gathering pace rapidly. Over three consecutive days we held two excellent public meetings, followed by a lobby outside the board meeting of Whitefriars Housing.

28 people attended the meeting in Hillfields despite heavy rain, and over 40 people came in Stoke the next day. Former Labour MP and Socialist councillor Dave Nellist spoke at both meetings, and tenants were given appeal forms to submit to the council.

People also shared how the bedroom tax is affecting them. One tenant explained that he’d been hit by the bedroom tax on his “spare room” – despite the room being just 2.5m long and 1.3m wide! His landlord should stop him being affected by reclassifying the house as having one bedroom, not two. (For more details watch the YouTube video – “Coventry Against the Bedroom Tax – Bekir’s Story”)

Around 40 people came to the lobby of Whitefriars on Thursday to demand that they don’t evict tenants who are affected by the bedroom tax. There are 13 members of the board, of which 4 are tenants and 3 are Labour councillors – if they argued for a non-eviction policy they would have a majority! Labour claim to be against the bedroom tax, so they should support those who are affected.