Lord And Master?

Rogue landlords are being funded to let out squalid residences in Hampshire. Alice Cooke says they should be stopped

- Alice Cooke

IT emerged recently that 15 rogue landlords have been prosecuted by Southampton City Council since 2013 – and fined £70,000 between them – for renting accommodation that boasted such charming features as boilers leaking carbon monoxide, rooms covered in mould and rat infestations. Delightful.

That’s a laudable prosecution rate, but also a worrying inditement that rogue landlording (if you will) is a prevalent problem. A worry that’s made all the more frustrating when you consider that in autumn of last year it emerged that rogue private landlords across the UK had been given £2.5bn a year of public money, and were “profiteering by selling squalor”. So not only are people living in appalling conditions and paying for the privilege, but the people responsible were (are still?) being subsidised by the taxpayer.