Private rented sector ‘a failure’ says tenant union lobbying for radical restructure

Tenants’ union Acorn has admitted it is out to shake up the structure of property ownership – as well as taking on rogue agents and landlords.

In a passionate polemic, Norfolk-based committee member Adam Walker explains that one landlord correctly labelled the group, “a well organised national network with a vision to fundamentally change how property ownership is structured”.

A spokesman explains that the private rented sector offers the least affordable, most insecure and lowest quality housing of all tenures.

“Yet at every turn, landlords have resisted regulations that would improve it,” he tells LandlordZONE.

“It is clear that the 30-year experiment in massively expanding the private rented sector has failed.

To get us out of the mess that it has left us in, the government needs to build millions of council houses so that every renter once again has access to the safe, secure and affordable homes that we all deserve.”

Reputation

Walker stresses that there are more tenants than there are landlords and that estate agents are wary of Acorn’s reputation.

He adds that Acorn’s reach goes beyond picketing estate agents where agents, “lived in fear of when we would arrive again. Phones were left switched off; buckets of water thrown at us.”

He says it has also successfully campaigned for Norfolk County Council to extend their food voucher scheme into the school holidays while in other cities, Acorn branches have campaigned to secure landlord licensing, fire safety and public buses.

“Every victory, large or small, helps to shift power back to us: the majority, the people.”

Picture credit: Acorn.

Read more about Acorn.