outh Yorkshire Times – Saturday 15 March 1952
House-Letting System Problems
Conisbrough Council to Consider Change
A £2 bribe was offered to Conisbrough Council’s Housing Officer if he would guarantee a Council house to the prospective tenant. The officer refused the bribe, reported it, and the name of the person who offered it was taken out of the Council’s housing list and put at the bottom of the list.
The attempt at bribery was stated at the Council’s meeting on Monday.
The person was said to have been prompted out of desperation because of the person’s position in the list.
An urgent plea was made to revise the present system of allocating points which decided the priority in house letting. It is probable that a special meeting will be held to find some means of improving the system, or of instituting a satisfactory substitute.
Another case put forward at the Council meeting was that of a man who had applied for a new Council house. His present house had an attic which was classified as a bedroom—and which, therefore, cost him five points. The attic, however, was claimed by the man as “not fit for a dog to live in.”
“A more serious thing,” said Coun. I. Houghton, “was that a daughter of 21 was having to sleep in the same room as her parents. ‘The conditions, if they are true,’ said Mr. Houghton, ‘are so unsavoury that I am not going to mention them at this meeting, but so serious that they need thorough investigation.’”
Coun. J. T. E. Collins said it was time the system was revised. It was causing much trouble among the Council and public. Daily people were calling at councillors’ homes and rightly so, with complaints, and with requests for special consideration or help where it was necessary.
He said that the Council, although they were already doing their best, must realise that these people wanted and needed houses and that they were not always getting them when they were most urgently needed because of the points system.
“Until we have sufficient houses to house all the applicants naturally we shall have disappointments, but that is no reason why we should not attempt to improve the points system to make it fairer.”
Coun. B. Roberts said that if the system were altered, more help and consideration might be given to those people who were at present barred by the system, and Coun. H. Gomersall pointed out that if the system were altered, the Council need not feel that they must stick to their revisions permanently if they were felt to be unsatisfactory also.
At present, he said, the system was causing much trouble and even the Housing Officer “is being played from pillar to post and told that he is not playing the game, and he is a man of integrity.”