12,000 "DISAPPEAR" FROM CORNWALL'S HOUSING WAITING LISTS

4.30.00pm GMT Mon 22nd Feb 2010

Julia has called on Cornwall Council to urgently review their social housing application process, after it emerged that waiting lists in the county have dropped by more than 12,000 following a re-registration process initiated last October.

According to figures released by Cornwall Council to Ms Goldsworthy, more than 19,000 applicants were registered with the former district council housing registers. Under the new system, initiated by the new Conservative-led unitary council, only 6,600 are currently on the list, representing a dramatic decrease of nearly two thirds.

The Falmouth and Camborne MP said that many vulnerable people in housing need may have been taken off the queue, because they had failed to return a complex 20 page form in time. Anyone who did not return the form within a three week window last October has now been removed from the list.

Commenting, Julia said:

"I am deeply concerned that many thousands of people in housing need have disappeared from Cornwall's official social housing waiting list. Worse still, there is every possibility that vulnerable people have been taken off the list without even realising it. This dramatic fall in numbers smacks of a botched re-registration process, which should be ringing very loud alarm bells at County Hall.

"I have written to Cornwall Council asking them to urgently review their social housing registration process. They need to guarantee that anyone previously on the list will not lose their place, make greater efforts to support vulnerable people with their applications, and must undertake to review their list on a rolling basis, as was the case when the districts managed this process.

"How can the council hope to take effective action to tackle housing need in Cornwall, when they have yet to properly quantify the scale of the problem? Rather than release this information by the back door, they need to come clean with the public and promise that no one in housing need will be bumped off the list."