SOME of Brentwood's most vulnerable residents say they are in financial crisis because of the so-called "bedroom tax" and changes to benefits.
Unemployed Barbara Johnson says that once all her bills have been paid, she is left with only £5 a week to buy food and clothing.
Dubbed the "bedroom tax" by opponents, the under-occupation penalty, drawn up by the Department for Work and Pensions, aims to encourage council households to downsize if they have spare rooms, freeing up their properties for larger families in need.
Yet in the case of Ms Johnson, a tenant in a two-bedroom council house in Wainwright Avenue, Hutton, this means she will now have to pay £16 from her weekly Jobseeker's Allowance of £72 to make up for a 14 per cent cut in housing benefit and a 20 per cent cut in council tax benefit.
The Government hopes its policy will make better use of almost a million unused rooms across the UK and that it will help to reduce the annual £23 billion housing benefit bill.
Mike Le-Surf, Labour minority group leader on Brentwood Borough Council, says the Tory-controlled authority is "culpable for the problem by ignoring the housing crisis tsunami".
The number of people waiting for a council house in Brentwood grew approximately ten times faster than the national average.
Figures from the council show that the waiting list rocketed from 777 in April 2004 to 2,514 in April 2011 – an increase of 223 per cent.
Mr Le Surf, who described the council's housing panel as "smiling assassins", said: "If a town is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens then Brentwood fails the test.
"While the Tory administration bend over backwards to implement Eric Pickles' every word, I have been meeting families that have suffered recent bereavements, are in poor health or have disabilities that do not allow them to work at this time."
Alongside the bedroom tax and cuts to council tax benefit, rents are going up by almost 4 per cent and fixed five-year tenancies look set to be introduced for those who live in social housing in Brentwood.
Mr Le-Surf added: "It is an utter disgrace that the Conservative administration have accepted these centrist policies without a murmur of defiance or regret."
Housing panel chairman Jan Pound said: "There are people who are being badly hit, but we are not the council without a heart and we are doing our best to deal with individual cases.
"At the end of the day, this is a Government policy but we are picking up individual cases.
"There is a hardship fund which we hope will pick up people in that safety net.
"We do have to find more housing and the process has started to build more council houses.
"That should start in the next two years. We are doing an asset review to see which pieces of land we have and which assets can be converted to houses."
What do you think of the "bedroom tax"? Are you affected? E-mail editorial@gazettenews.co.uk or write to Brentwood Gazette, 1st Floor, Hedgerows Business Park, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 5PF
