What to do with immigrants? - ask Shakespeare

I know that but as a Landlord I always consider the neighbours and ensure I rent it to people I think would cause them no trouble or concern.

If it’s social housing then there may be bad feeling that it is not going to local people and I do understand that.

The Council could and should have explained the situation to people in the neighbourhood BEFORE the new tenants arrived. I think this has been handled badly. They should also explain to the new people that they must behave in an acceptable way too.

Let me just repeat again, I do not condone the behaviour of a few people in the Thetford area.

LemonJam

Nobody actually ever gets to choose new neighbours or gets consulted on who is moving in when someone else is moving out. The owner/landlord/property agent or council of a property gets to decide who lives in and moves into a property, not the neighbours.

Someone always has the option to move if they dont like their new neighbours. But we all know, or should know that it is against the law to be violent towards, intimidate or harass new neighbours on the basis you don't like them.

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Yes, we’ve had some very peculiar if not downright horrible neighbours over the years.

We didn’t get to choose.

But I would have no more thought to be violent towards them than fly to the moon.

That is not how life works.

I think councils are between a rock and a hard place. The council quite rightly has a duty to make provision (similarly with the Traveller community) whilst also knowing that whatever they do there will be people who will be made unhappy by it.

Exactly WWM2- life doesn't work like that. I also agree with Luckygirl3- councils are between a rock and a hard place and have statutory housing duties. The council's cannot break the law and must fulfil their duties.

In what way should councils explain to neighbours who is coming to live in any of their properties and what information should be disclosed? Thats not viable.

Is the suggestion that neighbours who may be anti immigrant or anti single parents, anti muslim, anti people who claim benefits, anti ex offenders, anti travellers, anti homeless, or anti anything should be informed of such personal detail of who is coming to live in a near by property? Should neighbours either side of the poetry be informed or the whole neighbourhood? Should the council do that for every single person they house, white, young, retired etc? If not all- whcih groups are to be included?

What difference would that make anyway?

People who are prejudiced and/or anti any of the above categories, will still be anti any of the above whether informed or not. If informed they will spread their views prior to the persons moving in. If they are pre disposed to violent protest the knowledge will not change their predisposition I wouldn't have thought.

This wasn't an incident of violent protest just by neighbours after all?

Primrose as a private landlord you have no obligation to house someone and can choose to whom you rent a property. This is not the case with councils who have the responsibility for housing those who are in the greatest need for help.

foxie48

Primrose as a private landlord you have no obligation to house someone and can choose to whom you rent a property. This is not the case with councils who have the responsibility for housing those who are in the greatest need for help.

Local people may not agree though that these people “are in the greatest need of help.” Many will be living in overcrowded conditions sharing houses with parents etc. thousands have been on waiting lists for decades and so on. Someone on Radio 2 today said he was Number 250 on the council bidding list for about 10 years, then suddenly he went to a number up in the thousands!

Local people do not know all the confidential detail of persons the council houses- not their health detail or anything else. It's not up to local people to screen and choose who their neighbours are. Local people do not choose the housing need criteria. Local people have to accept these facts or choose to move.

A landlord selects who they rent to, based on their own personal criteria. The people coming forward for private rentals, if on a council housing list- have not yet met the level of greater need than those the council has already housed. ie they have a lower need at that stage, no matter what number they are on the list.

Councils do not have the luxury of screening against personal criteria, what might or might not please the neighbours. They have a statutory duty to house, based on statutory criteria of need and must house in the properties available to them at that particular time. There are also circumstances where a Council may need to find emergency housing placement with little notice.

Entirely different from a private landlord- no comparison whatsoever.

Does anyone know what effort, if any, is being made to deter the migrants from coming here by publicising in their countries that life in the UK is not what the people smugglers promise it to be? Do they really understand that they won’t be automatically handed the keys to a house and a very big handout! Rather they will be housed with hundreds of other asylum seekers in, often, crowded accommodation and not allowed to work. Perhaps it would put some off coming here.