Druids Heath and Monyhull Forum have been campaigning for Build First since September 2020 with their first successful event with residents demonstrating just how much space there is in Druids Heath that can be built on. As well as Druids Heath having lots of space where houses can be built, the technology is available to build those houses quickly that have low or no heat costs, saving residents the dilemma between eat or heat. Build 1St adds to social housing instead of taking it away as Birmingham City Council currently are, making Birmingham a better city to live in with less homelessness. Build 1ST avoids adding to the 15000+ households currently on Birmingham City Council’s social housing waiting list and worsening what is already a national housing crisis. Build 1St keeps the community together and reduces the huge social prescribing costs that come with the current clearance process, saving the city money. Build 1St means children don’t need to move school unnecessarily, losing friends and affecting their education. Build First means residents are guaranteed to move to a decent clean home, not a substandard neglected property that many residents have been offered or found themselves in, that may be worse than the flat they have left. Sign the petition in support of Build First - The Logical Choice. Support yourself, Support Druids Heath, Support Birmingham.

Background information: Our land - We are concerned about how our Council is managing its most valuable asset, public land. There is a growing danger that it may consider disposing of land for short-term benefit, without full consideration of how it may solve the City’s long-term problems. A major ongoing issue being the shortage of suitable housing for local people. Housing costs and incomes Sussex Live reported in May 2021, using Government data, that rent payments take up nearly 47% of income for those who live in Brighton. This is now ahead of London. In addition, too many people are trapped in emergency and temporary accommodation, and this is more than likely to increase if we do not act now. Consequences of bad housing: - There is a growing awareness of the web of knock-on effects due to inadequate housing, including malnutrition, drink and drug abuse, domestic violence/abuse, child poverty, mental & physical health issues. The resolution of these issues is becoming increasingly difficult for local Councils to resolve, and we are seeing long established safety nets gradually being removed. Social housing – the solution – We cannot fail to be aware of the importance of decent, sustainable social housing as a means of improving people’s lives, thus enabling our Councils to use their resources more effectively. This view is supported by every major housing and homeless charity in the UK , who have agreed that building more suitable homes is the only answer to the Homeless crisis. Many more Council Homes - We must, therefore, use our publicly owned land to build council homes. UK Central Government has allocated £10 billion to build social/council homes. Both Conservative and Labour Parties have accepted the latest report prepared by "The Kerslake Commission" and both parties have agreed to build a minimum 90,000 council homes a year. The Green Party in our city have always supported community house building and to build homes fit to live in for decades to come. Action required - So, with these facts in mind, we can see no justification or excuse for the Council trying to sell off our land for ineffective private development. This must be used for building much-needed Social Homes. We the public, as owners of this land, must tell our elected Councillors to protect it from being sold off or tied up in long leases, often at nominal prices and allow it to be used for the benefit of our communities. Please sign and share this petition and get your friends (and friend’s friends!) to do the same. If you can’t sign this, you may be part of the problem!

Our estate has a conservation order yet is being left to rot. Repairs are not being undertaken or not being done to a satisfactory standard. Tenants are struggling with rising costs to heat their homes due to sub-standard windows. We have large cracks, with often crumbling plaster and leaks in our homes due to structural damage. We were promised new kitchens, bathrooms and windows more than twelve years ago but these have not materialised. All of these are affecting our mental heath, our physical well being and cost us extra money in bills every month. Please sign this petition so that Lambeth Council see how many people this issue effects.

I feel privileged to live in Plymouth. It's by the sea, has amazing beauty spots, Dartmoor is close by and the nightlife, pre-covid, was phenomenal. It is one of the UK's top tourist destinations. Unfortunately Plymouth's advantages can also be a disadvantage for its residents. I lived in my last flat for 5 years. The rent was affordable and it was close to the city centre – but was not in a great state of repair. When I complained to my landlord about the broken boiler and asked him to make repairs to his property, he threatened to evict me. One day a Section 21 notice arrived for me and the other tenants in the building, meaning we had to move out. The landlord said he was selling up because he did not want to be a landlord anymore. But a few months later, I discovered he had turned the building into an AirBnB. I found pictures online of my old flat which he had renovated and done up to perfection. My neighbours and I are not the only ones this has happened to. Plymouth has become a city of holiday lets. Cornwall has 62 homes to rent on Rightmove but 10,290 AirBnB listings. In one village in Wales, three quarters of the houses are holiday homes. Fewer homes available for residents mean higher rents, and people being priced out of their local areas in search of a home. That erodes local communities and starves local businesses of workers. The only people who benefit are the landlords. One cause of this is mortgage tax relief, which holiday-let landlords are entitled to but private rental landlords are not. It is saving holiday-let landlords potentially thousands of pounds every year, and actively dissuading them from renting their houses out to locals. After all, why rent to actual residents when the government has made it cheaper to let out holiday accommodation? We need a level playing field so that the local areas enjoy the right balance between holiday lets and homes people want to live in. By removing mortgage interest relief from holiday lets, more property owners will make their homes available to people who need somewhere to live. This will reduce rents, stop people being priced out, and make sure communities in tourist hotspots benefit.

Leaseholders and tenants across the UK are facing bankruptcy and eviction because of fire safety issues we did not cause, and have no control over fixing. Our homes were not built to be safe from fire, and to add insult to injury, leaseholders are picking up the bill. The strain this is having on our mental health is immense; we’re feeling angry, hopeless, helpless and trapped. Who is responsible? Cladding manufacturers who falsified fire safety tests, construction companies cutting corners and ineffective Government regulations. They must all be held to account. Boris Johnson must recognise that our safety comes before profit. The Government must force developers to make our homes safe, before any more new homes are built and protect leaseholders from all fire remediation costs.

Ezekiel Herman is a Dad of four who is the only tenant in his tower block: Saxelby House on the Druids Heath estate. Ezekiel's neighbours have all been cleared from the block as part of the £42million regeneration the council has imposed upon the area. Ezekiel has been on his own in the block for seven months and desperately wants to leave too - the block is unsafe, cold and scary now it's empty. But Birmingham City Council refuse to offer Ezekiel a suitable alternative property and are now trying to evict him. They will only offer him 1 bedroom properties which would mean he would be unable to spend time with his children or care for them when needed. When Ezekiel appealed this, he was offered 2 bedroom properties - but only in retirement blocks with wardens and safety alarms which they have admitted "the children would not be able to live in". Birmingham City Council claim that this is due to their reallocation policy, which "suits the city but will not make everyone happy." Despite numerous requests by Ezekiel, interventions by his doctor who has made clear that this has affected his health, and proof that he is responsible for the care of his children, they have refused to budge. Ezekiel is not the only person affected by this policy. We have heard from other residents who felt pushed out of their homes after Birmingham City Council informed them that turning down property offers would result in them being taken to court. Some residents were lucky to find a property they were happy with. But more are unhappy: they have been made to move far away from schools, jobs and their families, or accept properties in poor condition. At the root of this is the choice Birmingham City Council made at the beginning of the regeneration to evict all affected residents and demolish towers before building any more homes. This means that they are increasing the number of Brummies who need council houses by hundreds, but building no extra properties to house them. This affects not just the people of Druids Heath, but everyone in Birmingham, and adds to the chronic social housing shortage in the city. As more clearances are due to take place on Druids Heath, and with the future of the entire estate currently unclear, this policy must be changed, more homes must be built, and Ezekiel and all his neighbours must be treated fairly.

Right now, an estimated 353,000 private renters are in arrears. Rent arrears have doubled since the beginning of Covid, and time is running out for the Government to prevent a homelessness crisis. Private renters are struggling because of the pandemic, and the Government has not offered enough enough support for those who have lost income. We need a Covid Rent Debt Fund to clear arrears, so that they cover average rents. Otherwise, thousands of renters will be extremely vulnerable to losing their homes, relying on their local councils to be rehoused, and risking homelessness, in just a couple of weeks’ time. Why we need a covid rent debt fund now. On 1 June the ban on bailiff evictions, which have been in place during the lockdowns, will be lifted. The courts have been processing evictions since September, which means that thousands of tenants will start being made homeless by mid-June. 60% of private renters had no savings at the start of the pandemic and a further 18% have had to use savings to pay their rent in the past year. How can these families and households afford to pay the rent, when they have experienced drops in their incomes, redundancies or a loss of business? The simple answer for many is they cannot. To make matters even worse, for the record number of people who now rely on Universal Credit because of the pandemic, many are now finding that benefits are not enough to cover the rent. People like Gareth from Worcestershire have had no choice but to fall into debt. He contacted us in April to tell us his story. “Since April 2020 my contracting business hit a full stop and I have been without income since that time… After 8 months I explained the situation to my rental agent who offered a slightly reduced monthly payment but still to be owed. So no benefit, just additional debt.” Renters are one of the most economically vulnerable groups in the country, and yet the Government still has not offered them more support. We need COVID rent debt fund.

The fence has to go!

Right now, landlords can evict tenants without giving a reason, using Section 21 of the 1988 Housing Act. The Government pledged to end these unfair evictions in 2019, but have not delivered on this promise. Losing your home through no fault of your own is never easy, but during a pandemic, it can be dangerous. Last March, the Government promised us that no one would lose their homes because of Covid, but renters are currently being evicted because of section 21, even in lockdown. My name is Jacqueline. At the start of the pandemic I was working for a care agency out in the community, ensuring that vulnerable people were being properly and well cared for in their homes. The stress from the job, made worse by the PPE scandal, finally took its toll on my mental health in June 2020 and, on the orders of my GP, I was medically signed off from work. This led to me having to apply for Universal Credit whilst also looking for another job, in what was and still is, a very difficult time. I had to wait five weeks for my first Universal Credit payment which meant that I was immediately plunged into debt. I had a small amount of debt before, but had almost paid this off. The landlord knew about my situation but was not remotely interested. I was issued with a Section 21 ‘no fault’ eviction notice in August 2020. What followed was numerous emails from the letting agency, constantly wanting updates on when I would be leaving the property. The moving costs were too expensive and I could not find anywhere else for myself and my daughter to go. This meant we did not leave the house at the end of the eviction notice and the pressure from the agency grew even worse. Each time I received an email I just felt so harassed, as though a tremendous weight had been put on me. My landlord has now applied to the court to have me evicted. The law means they don’t even need a reason. I am now facing the reality of being made homeless and with nowhere to go. The Government promised that people like me would not lose their home due to covid-19. But that’s exactly what’s happening. It’s been almost two years since they promised to end unfair evictions, but I’m now facing homelessness in the middle of a pandemic. Everyone deserves a safe and secure home - that's why I reached out to Generation Rent - the Government must stop dragging their feet and deliver on their promise to end unfair evictions.

**Update 11 Feb 2020 - Robert Jenrick yesterday announced an extra £3.5 billion in funding to fix cladding in high-rise buildings, but this does not go nearly far enough. In a move that has angered many, no funding was announced for fixing other fire safety defects or for buildings under 18m. An estimated 70% of buildings with unsafe cladding also have other fire safety defects, meaning flat owners in high-rise buildings will still have to pay to fix these with average bills of £25,000. Only long-term loans were offered for buildings under 18m leaving them to pay all costs. This will saddle these flats with debts for decades, make them unsellable and could push flat owners into negative equity.** Up to 11 million flat owners in the UK are now potentially living in unsafe buildings. Since the fire at Grenfell in June 2017 in which 72 people lost their lives, it has become clear thousands of buildings across the UK are fire traps, due to flammable cladding and other serious fire safety defects. These buildings should never have been built like this. A culture of corner cutting from the construction industry, alongside regulatory failure are to blame. Flat owners are facing unimaginable bills in the tens of thousands of pounds - some over £100,000 each - to fix unsafe buildings, despite them not being at fault. Flat owners live in constant fear of fires in their buildings. Their homes are so dangerous many require 24/7 fire patrols known as “waking watch”. These can cost up to £15,000 a week, alongside flat owners seeing astronomical insurance hikes. Until their buildings are fixed, they cannot sell or remortgage. Hayley, a first-time buyer, bought her flat in Leeds at 27. At 28 she went bankrupt due to the crisis. Hayley will not be the only one to go bankrupt - thousands, if not millions, more will go bankrupt too. All this is seriously impacting mental health. “I struggle each day to keep myself alive due to the financial worries of ending up homeless and bankrupt.” [UK Cladding Action Group, Mental Health Survey] The government must protect all flat owners from the costs of fixing unsafe buildings, no matter the height of those buildings. The problems now stretch well beyond cladding to other defects like missing fire breaks and flammable insulation. The vast majority of flat owners are leaseholders, meaning they do not own their buildings, but just lease them. Archaic laws mean all costs can be passed onto them by the building owner. The government must make the money available upfront so buildings can be made safe quickly, and then work to recoup the money from those who were responsible. Millions of other flat owners cannot move home as they await surveys to know if their building is safe, seriously affecting the housing market. 86% of surveys to date have shown work is needed as buildings are unsafe - at cost to flat owners Funding to date has been entirely inadequate, with just a fraction of the estimated £15 billion needed having been made available. Flat owners must not be forced to pay, both financially and mentally, for others’ mistakes.

2020 demonstrated more than ever the importance of a safe and comfortable home. But too many people suffer in poor quality, even dangerous, houses. And with the government making it easier to build homes without proper local scrutiny, we could be looking at thousands of “slums of the future”. Liverpool’s local leaders are currently figuring out an ambitious long-term plan for housing right across the region. These decisions will play a huge role in the quality of housing for years to come - and could have a massive influence on the rest of the country too! That’s why we - the people of Liverpool and its surrounding areas - are demanding that any new housing meets eleven basic principles: 1. Be safe in relation to the risk of fire. 2. Have adequate space. 3. Have access to natural light. 4. Must meet people’s lifetime needs and be adaptable. 5. Be accessible and located in accessible environments. 6. Prioritise walkable services and sustainable transport. 7. Be built in line with the Climate Change Act 2008. 8. Have access to green space and play areas that are accessible to all. 9. Be resilient to a changing climate. 10. Be secure and meet design standards which reduce and prevent crime. 11. Meet standards to eradicate noise pollution. The eleven principles have been developed by the TCPA (Town and Country Planning Association) as part of their Healthy Homes Campaign. You can read more about them here: https://www.tcpa.org.uk/healthy-homes-act

Kingspan, an Irish company based in Cavan, manufactured Grenfell Tower’s combustible insulation. During the Grenfell Inquiry into the tower block fire which killed 72 people in 2017, a former executive said that the firm was involved in a “deliberate and calculated deceit”, which involved the product, which failed several full-scale fire tests, but was being sold on the basis of earlier tests of a different, less combustible version of the product. The inquiry has also heard that Kingspan rigged tests and hired lobbyists after the disaster to try to persuade MPs that rival non-combustible products might be no less dangerous. Ulster Rugby should play no part in whitewashing Kingspan's image and must terminate it's sponsorship relationship and rename the stadium.