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House prices in Scotland have risen by 19% for old houses and 119 for new ones over the last yeur. But tenants receive scant attention."
In Edinburgh Tory Cornelius Waugh, head of the housing committee has claimed: "No-one in genuine difficulty will be evicted from a council house. In such cases we do our utmost to ensure that the family concerned are receiving all the benefit and support to which they are entitled."
In fact in June 1976 Edinburgh was evicting tenants at a rate of 273 per year. By October that rate had increased to 334 per year. Of these 1 in every 10 were not getting family income supplement they were due. 3 in every 10 were not receiving rent and rules rebates they were due. 2 out of every 10 are single parent families and half of those were certainly due Child Interim Benefit bur did not appear to be getting it. The average annual rent in Edinburgh is £203.11 - E52.44 above the Scottish average and the highest in Scotland.
Glasgow's Labour council has decided
to demolish one third of the houses in
Blackhill. Bailie Dick Dynes told the Evening
Times of 7th April.
"The alternative to demolition is to
spend C6 million on improvements. That would be perpetuating a ghetto mentality.
We are not prepared to spend that amount
•... I regard this as a radical new approach to the problems of Blackhill."
The council's radicalism also includes
making 800 redundancies in the Direct Labour Department. Their solution to the resulting problems is to sell off council houses and building projects to the private sector - more goodies for the sharks who are keeping prices and rents sky high.
The final disgrace came when housing
committee member Mrs. Catherine Cantley had to resign. She had arranged some spectacular queue jumping for her son and
his girlfriend. They got a brand new council
house on request something beyond the
wildest dreams of those whose ma is not on the housing committee.