The under-occupancy element of the Welfare Reform Act, the Bedroom Tax, is a blatant attack on tenants in social housing.  This punitive policy attacks tenants and workers with it having far-reaching negative ramifications on other stakeholders in our housing system.

Some councils in Scotland have implemented a ‘no eviction’ policy for bedroom tax arrears in an attempt to mitigate the effects of the bedroom tax.

South Ayrshire Council was one Council that democratically decided that they would mitigate the Bedroom Tax by implementing a 12 months ‘no eviction’ policy.  Yet in the first week of November they sent letters threatening eviction to tenants and stated that they would inform children’s services of this action. We believe that this approach by South Ayrshire Council is both aggressive and flies in the face of a democratic decision to not evict tenants with bedroom tax arrears

South Ayrshire Council has not apologised for these letters and go as far as attempting to justify these letters. We believe that this is completely unacceptable.

At Westminster, the Conservatives have a ‘coalition agreement’ with the Liberal Democrats and as such, the Liberal Democrats are rightfully criticised for enabling the Conservative Party in Westminster. South Ayrshire Council is a minority Conservative council which has a ‘Partnership Agreement’ with the Labour group to ensure that they have a majority.  We believe that the Labour group is enabling the Conservatives in South Ayrshire and due to this enabling, the Council is allowed to threaten tenants with eviction for bedroom tax arrears.


We find it strange that some Labour councillors in South Ayrshire can protest against the bedroom tax but are still willing to work in coalition with the Party who is causing untold havoc with their austere policies in Westminster.

We find it disturbing that a Party that has been in opposition to the Tories since their inception can enter into coalition with the Conservatives at any level of politics.

We believe that the Labour group in South Ayrshire should be acting as opposition to the Tories at all rather than enabling them and their policies

We call on the Labour group in South Ayrshire to immediately break their partnership agreement with the Tory Group in South Ayrshire and allow the Conservatives to run a minority administration as they did prior to the last council election. 


Wallace Kerr
No2BedroomTax Campaign

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