The injustice of Slough Borough Council never ceases to amaze me.
The council reportedly spent £7,000 to send Leader Cllr Sohail Munawar to a conference in Cannes.
A total figure for ‘hidden expenses’ is yet to be released. Meanwhile, it has emerged that a woman with an epileptic son who was left homeless by the council for four months was given just £1,000 in compensation to ‘recognise the injustice caused to her through its delay in offering her temporary accommodation’.
The Local Government Ombudsman found that there had been ‘maladministration’ in the council’s handling of this case.
Unfortunately, I’m not surprised by this finding. The existing Slough Housing Strategy – 2005-2010 is currently being updated. A new housing strategy was due for publication in 2016 but has now been deferred to April of this year. Slough Homelessness Strategy – 2008-2011, is also out of date. A new Homelessness Strategy is currently in development.
In the first three quarters of 2016 to September, there were 330 homeless applications in the town, of which just 162 were accepted. So what happened to the other 168 applicants? Homelessness is increasing rapidly in Slough. There is no doubt that more needs to be done to help the town’s growing homeless population. That said prevention is always a good starting point.
CLLR WAL CHAHAL
Slough Conservative Group Leader
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