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91% OF SALFORD UNIVERSAL CREDIT CLAIMANTS IN ARREARS WITH CITY WEST
 

Star date: 18th January 2018

HUGE INCREASE IN SALFORD RENT ARREARS DUE TO UNIVERSAL CREDIT

91.3% of City West tenants claiming Universal Credit are currently in arrears with their rent payments, compared to 42.3% of tenants in arrears who are not claiming Universal Credit.

Relating the figures to yesterday's full meeting of Salford Council, City Mayor Paul Dennett added that there was "a clear correlation between the introduction of Universal Credit and increased use of collection orders.

Full details here...


As predicted, the Tory Government's Universal Credit is having a catastrophic effect on claimants, with rent arrears spiralling for those who have been put on the new benefit.

Over 4,000 Salford people are currently claiming Universal Credit and, at yesterday's full meeting of Salford Council, City Mayor, Paul Dennett, quoted figures from City West Housing showing 91.3% of Universal Credit tenants are in arrears, compared to 42.3% of non-Universal Credit claimants in arrears.

The average arrears for those City West tenants on Universal Credit is £852, compared to £472 for those not on Universal Credit.

"These trends are mirrored across our providers with a clear correlation between the introduction of Universal Credit and increased use of collection orders" said Dennett, slating the Government for leaving local authorities to deal with the fall-out against a programme of cuts and dwindling resources.

In November, Salford Council passed a motion to halt the roll-out of Universal Credit that was even backed by Salford Conservative councillors (see here).

At that meeting, Deputy Mayor, Paula Boshell, spoke of unprecedented cuts to benefits and added that "We're expecting a Universal Credit tsunami in June as all 4,500 claimants have to re-apply, all at the same time..."

Councillor Barbara Bentham insisted that "Universal Credit is so flawed that I have doubts that it can ever be fixed..."


*A few weeks ago, the Salford Star asked the Chief Executive of Salix Homes for an interview on how Universal Credit was affecting its tenants but this was declined.

mystic meg wrote
at 22:06:06 on 25 January 2018
Your silence tells me something, Ray. That you've lost the argument. You Labour Council types always lose, Ray.
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 14:34:24 on 24 January 2018
Stop living in denial Ray. Before the Tories, and before the Tories and the Lib Dems, we had twelve years of a Labour government, and Salford City Council were just as dire back then as they are now. So answer my questions, Ray. Stop being a toadying My Party Right or Wrong, Labour Party apparatchik, and just answer the questions that I've asked and comment on the points that I've made. It shouldn't be too difficult for you.
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Rayofsunshine wrote
at 13:19:43 on 24 January 2018
Mystic Meg, why are you whitewashing the role of the Tories in the cladding scandal? Are you,as I suspect, a closet Tory?
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Felsey issues a warning wrote
at 08:26:24 on 24 January 2018
Flattered by MysticMeg somewhat, but let me now elaborate on why I urge Salford Council to pay each resident £5,000 compensation for the High Rise cladding. I reflect back to in 1960 when British Gas workers in the UK were subjected to working with Asbestos. It transpired to become a negligence, now Government puts up to £150,000 payment each for affected ex workers. Settle up now before a day comes when stress - negligence can see Salford Council at risk of it paying out £millions. If I was Mayor I would ensure each of those residents gets a free health check, a rent free period for duration of hazardous materials and a suitable compensation. The right thing is always the best thing to do.
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 16:00:29 on 23 January 2018
Mystic Meg looks at Rayofsunshine with pity in her warm, green eyes before: "Ray, you sound like a good kid, but you need to grow up. This is a mean old world, Ray. Pity and compassion, those wonderful commodities, they're in short supply now Ray. Now listen to me, Ray, I wish things were different, but they ain't. For me, with my jaundiced eye, life's getting like a Bruce Springsteen song. Factory, if you work in the service industry, and Down bound Train if you're on the dole. You ask what I want? You imply that I don't seem to want the Council to sort out the cladding. Of course I want those buffoons to sort out the cladding, I just wishthat they hadn't signed off on the cheap and flammable crap in the first place, that rather than being penny pinching and stupid, penny wise and pound foolish feckless pissing idiots, squandering "OUR" money on material that isn't fit for purpose and could easily turn the various tower blocks into northern versions of the Steve McQueen movie, The Towering Inferno; that they had had the wisdom of the Scottish Councils, none of whose high rises have failed safety tests... but this is Salford, not Scotland. Anyway Ray, like I said, " Mystic Meg says, sounding like a character in an American tv movie, her voice full of magnanimity: "You sound like a good kid, with a good heart... Oh, and just one last thing, Ray ... VIVA MICHAEL J FELSE!!! FELSE FOR MAYOR! YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
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Rayofsunshine wrote
at 13:32:27 on 23 January 2018
Mystic Meg, you seem to resent the fact that the council is in the process of replacing tower block cladding. Why are you so dispèptiç? Is it because you are more interested in attacking the council than seeing to it that tower blocks are made safe?
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 18:10:06 on 22 January 2018
Rayofsunshine, did Salford City Council borrow the twenty five million pounds for the cladding fiasco from the Public Works Loans Board? Their interest rates are far lower than private banks. So just give me an answer. Yes or no. And yes, Ray, Salford City Council should levy planning fees on all of these new developments, even if the planning fees are later overturned by some type of appeals panel. The Council should levy the planning fees in all cases because it is the right thing to do. Finally Ray, every single tower block with the aluminium cladding in Salford failed the safety tests. Yet in Scotland not one single tower block failed the safety tests. Why is this? I, Mystic Meg, can only conclude that it is entirely down to Salford City Labour Council being penny wise and pound foolish. Those useless Muppets will have gone for the cheapest option. Stupid, stupid people. Do they never learn? Apparently not. Will they ever learn? Never. p.s Just one last thing. VIVA MICHAEL J FELSE!!! MICHAEL J FELSE FOR LANGWORTHY! YEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!
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Rayofsunshine wrote
at 15:26:32 on 22 January 2018
Mystic Meg,let me unpacķ the issues that divide us. Universal Credit - is a Tory policy (originated by Total Tory Tosspot,Iain Duncan Smith),which has been imposed on Salford. Bècause of the nature of power in Britain,Local Authorities,like Salford,are forced to implement central government legislation. You should aim your anger at the Tories,not Salford! Tower block cladding - whilst far from ideal, the council is motivated by the need to protect residents. That is why Salford decided,in the absence of government funding,to finance by borrowing,the replacement of cladding. What take s priority here,Mystic Meg,effective fire prevention or petty point scoring? Please answer. Planning fees - the counçil finds itself in an invidious situation. If it opts to levy fees on developers,it risks having this levy overturned by a planning tribunal. Are you honestly suggesting that the council shouĺd spend money on a blatantly rigged, i.e. pro developer,adjudication process?
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Bob the regular wrote
at 09:23:24 on 22 January 2018
Settle down you lot. Look , there is one thing that proves what our wonderful council are about. These turds own the car park at Salford Royal and screw sick people and there vistors out of £1million a year. They even charge blue badge people. This is how caring they are. This is dead against what Corbyn says on car parking
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 14:47:39 on 21 January 2018
So like I've been saying Ray, if Salford Labour Council had any calibre, any class, then Salford wouldn't be floating ominously down Shit Creek, heading for the falls. The thing is, they have no excuses. They have been running the council as a one man band for forty four years. Sooner or later they will either go bust, calling in the administrators, like a latter day Detroit, or the tenants and homeowners of the majority of the new and outrageously expensive new apartments will vote them into oblivion. After all, how many people with mortgages on flats costing up to a million pounds do you think are Labour voters. Likewise, how many tenants who can afford to pay ludicrously high rents, do you personally believe will vote Labour. The writing is on the wall, Ray, Salford is doomed.
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 08:08:21 on 21 January 2018
Yes Rayofsunshine, I believe that services should be properly funded. The thing is, Salford City Council have a long and lamentable history of making a bollocks of everything. Forty four years of making a bollocks of everything to be precise. I myself am forty nine years of age, since I was five years old, Salford City Council has been wholly controlled by Salford Labour party. In many ways I feel similar to a middle aged resident of Pyongyang, who has only ever known life under the kim family. Truth be told I am probably suffering from PTSD after so many years of living in the utopian land of The Socialist Republic of Salford. The thing is, all piss taking aside, Salford Labour Council are not fit for purpose. So, yes I want services to be funded, but if the Council weren't so inept, they would have had fifty million pounds that they have let billionaire property developers off from paying. Also they would have had the 24 million pounds that they have pissed away in loans to an alleged billionaire for a rugby stadium. And the cladding debacle. Having to borrow twenty five million pounds for replacement cladding. I'd wager that the Council didn't borrow that 25 million sovs from the Government's Central Bank, at a low interest rate. No, they probably went flat cap in hand to Barclays. And the money that these buffoons borrowed from private banks by taking out LOBO loans, whereby the Council will be using our money to pay just the interest on these loans off forever. How stupid do these people have to get? Salford City Labour Council, Unfit for Purpose. Penny wise but pound foolish. Inept. Inadequate. Naive. Ludicrous. Psssssst. Just keep the red flag flying, Comrade.
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Rayofsunshine wrote
at 17:05:09 on 20 January 2018
Mystic Meg,all the ills you seek highlight;Universal Credit,tower block cladding and free loading property developers can ultimately laid at the door of the current government. Do you agree that services in Salford need properly funded? Yes or no?
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 14:02:19 on 20 January 2018
Mystic Meg laughs at Rayofsunshine before "Is that the best you got? Is that all you got, Sucka?! If it is, then how very Ostrich with its head in the sand Salford Labour of you. Heh heh heh, You Wallys couldnt run a Bargain Booze and make a profit in the run up to the Christmas Holidays. Pssssssssst. One thing that I couldn't fail to notice is that you haven't answered any of the points that I made. But that's because my points are all true, and you, Rayofsunshine, can't defend the indefensible.
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 12:39:16 on 20 January 2018
Rayofsunshine, and now that you've gotten old Mystic Meg going, ray, do tell her how much as a percentage is taken from the council tax that is raised, and is then paid to the banks to cover the interest payments on the LOBO loans that you wallys took out. What are we talking, fifty pence in the pound? More! Sixty pence?! Or is it higher? You Muppets. You want to dance with Big Business, all the while, as our representatives, getting shafted and coming off second best, and you want to play at being socialists, like little children playing with toys, handling a toy car and making the sounds as you palm it around the lino. Salford City Council. Controlled by the Labour Party for forty four years. Absolute Bloody Joke. p.s VIVA MICHAEL JAMES FELSE!!!
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Rayofsunshine wrote
at 12:39:05 on 20 January 2018
Mystic Meg,I do hope that you are taķing your anti psychotic tablets. Cleary you are not a full shiĺling!
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 08:43:08 on 20 January 2018
Rayofsunshine, the evidence that I have, Uncle, is purely circumstantial. It revolves around me using my Cartesian Commonsense. It must be obvious, even to someone like yourself, that Labour in Salford are doing NOTHING about what is going on. Listen, if this Band of Brigands running Salford City Council really gave a shit, they could tell the head honchos at City West and Salix Homes to ease off on beginning eviction proceedings against tenants who are in the transitional period, having gone from ESA to UC. And to stop sending said tenants scary red letters constantly banging on about how much the tenant now owes, and thus, in all probability making the said tenants feel depressed, stressed and possibly suicidal. And they COULD do this, as many Labour councillors sit on the boards of City West and Salix Homes ... But will they? No of course they won't, as it is not in their interests to do so. Res Ipsa Loquiter. I rest my case...
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 08:42:36 on 20 January 2018
Listen Ray, for forty four years Labour has had control of Salford City Council, and what have they done? Tell me some of their achievements. For my opinion, Labour Councillors aren't genuine Socialists. They're a bunch of poodlefakers, Pseudo Socialists They do nothing but pay lip service to the values of real socialism. Marx and Engels would be turning in their graves if they could see these bozos running the council and ruining the City. Think about it Ray, all the planning fee dodging sweetheart deals that the Council give to billionaire mbusiness people. Not very Frank Allaun is it? These super rich developers are as ruthless as the American Robber Barons from the nineteenth century. They despise you Labour Pseudo Socialists. Yet you let them take the piss out of you, and thus every Salfordian. And how they take the piss out of you. Just look at what Peel are doing with Warburton Bridge. It's a joke. The Salford City Labour controlled Council are absurd, with the corporate big boys you behave like a toothless and arthritic old lioness, but with skint Salfordians, you crack the whip and wield the baton. Tell me, how much will Council tax be going up by this April? After all, we'll have to pay for your never ending cock ups won't we. You know, the Salford Red's stadium and the aluminium cladding fiasco. That 25 million that you've borrowed will probably end up costing us Council Tax payers a hundred million pounds over the next half a century. You are a joke. In private business, Salford City Council couldn't run a fish and chip shop. You bunch of absolute Muppets. You don't even have the nouce to understand that all of these thousands of "luxury" apartments will be mostly voting Conservative, thus over time turning Salford Labour Party into an endangered species. If Salford Labour were a bird, they'd be the Red breasted lesser spotted tit. Latin name, Fakius Socialistius Tittius. Just think Ray, think about all of those millions of £'s you've allowed those greedy bastards to avoid paying. And think about what the Council (if it had any commonsense) could have done with that filthy lucre. One last thing, keep the red flag flying; AND VIVA MICHAEL FELSE!!!!!
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Rayofsunshine wrote
at 20:03:05 on 19 January 2018
Mystic Meg, what real evidence do you have to support your accusations against the council? U.C. is a nationaĺ policy imposed on Salforď by a useĺess,do nothing,iĺlegitìmate Tory Government.
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Mystic Meg wrote
at 16:03:31 on 18 January 2018
I believe that Salford Council secretly want and agree with Universal Credit and with benefit sanctions. The reason that I say this is because for the Council, these things, UC and benefit sanctions, will lead to the economically unviable being made homeless and their flats and houses then becoming available to people that the Council really want in the City. They might pretend that they don't want these things, but ultimately these things give the Council what they have wanted for years. Think about it. Do the Council, allegedly hard Left and Comrade Corbynista to boot, really want thousands of unemployed and to use their terminology, "economically inactve" people living in their properties? I suspect not. They want people who are going to be paying rent and council tax there instead. But being hypocrites they would flatly deny this. But would you believe anything that these people would deny? Their hard left Corbynista Socialism is nothing but a pretense. The equivalent of a poor man in a charity shop suit and carrying a charity shop briefcase pretending to be a middle class well to do barrister or architect. Voting Conservative and putting on a fake recieved pronunciation accent, while everyone around him thinks "What a Nob." Trust me, they don't care. They never have and they never will. They want what they see as the riff raff gone, but while the so called riff raff are going, the "Hard Left Corbynista Socialists of Salford City Council" will be crying crocodile tears and bleating on about injustice and "it's all down to this perfidious Tory Government etc", while hiding their smirks and rubbing their hands with glee and giving out sweetheart deals to the Done brothers and other big business uber Capitalistic property developers.
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Bob the regular wrote
at 16:01:33 on 18 January 2018
In the section yesterday I mentioned about the plight of a friend as regards universal credit. After all the rows we have had with these people things are now ok, in fact by my reckoning of the points score she is slightly ahead. the uc people are also slightly ahead, but the loosers are unfortunatly her housing provider, and energy supplier. before uc it was all about level, which made her happy. It does not please her to be on the winning side. If it was for me,I would be glad to be on the winning side, getting one up on a few of them. This UC system is not without its benefits. Most benefit claiment people are not so good with paperwork and loose it. The UC system journal creates a perfect record of things.Which could be used against them in legal proceedings. Just imagine ,if some of our rent a mob protestors, many university educated and inteligent, were to take the trouble to learn eloquent and articulate english, "like wot rees mogg talks". This could then be used to help our poorer claimants to fill in their journals.Entries could be worded in such a way to help our poorly educated overworked benefits provision staff to trip over their undergarments. Language used in UC journals that would be seen as articulate and precise to a judicial reveiw judge ,could be difficult to understand for a benefit giver. An old pal of mine, a Salford lad with a double Cambridge first,used to do this all the time.Not seen him for a while but I bet money he is a Star reader.
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