Rent increase protestors speak out at social housing conference

Protestors interrupted a housing conference in Manchester after their housing association tried to slap them with a huge rent increase.

Residents were facing a 20 per cent rent increase on their homes on Napier Street and Gilderdale Close in Shaw, in Oldham, which are owned by Places for People (PfP).

The increase would amount to £150 and £180 extra each month, leaving many of the elderly and disabled residents fearing homelessness.

PfP have put the rent increase ‘on hold’ to negotiate with tenants, but the group claims they are ‘not been listened to’.

Protestors appeared with satirical T-shirts and a banner reading ‘Places for Profit’ and the housing association logo during a talk at the Housing 2025 conference at Manchester Central.

Tenants, campaigners and a local councillor tried to ask questions to one of the speakers at the event, Christine Candlish, Acting Director for Living Plus At Places for People, a subsidiary company of Places for People.

The group of six, including local councillor Marc Hince, said they were representing around 40 tenants.

The protestors were brusquely escorted from the premises.

Sarah Howarth-Flanagan, one of the protestors, afterwards told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Today was about residents fighting back against substantial rent increases – 20 per cent each year to bring them in line with market rent homes in the area.

"But they’re not market rent homes – they’re social housing that some tenants have lived in for over 30 years.

“We’re paying around £650-700 now.

"Market rent in the area is £1100-£1200, that’s nearly double the rent.

"You’ve got vulnerable residents there, and if they are classed as private, we don’t know what will happen with their housing benefits.

“Where’s an elderly person going to find that money?

"They’ll be evicted for rent arrears – and then where are they going to go?

"There’s no social housing available in Oldham, so what are you going to do, put a 70-year-old disabled person into a hostel, or a HMO?

"I don’t think so.”

Another resident, Deborah, shared she’d ‘never done anything like a protest before’ but felt compelled to stand up for her home.

Many of the tenants are under ‘assured tenancies’, which independent solicitors have described as social housing contracts.

But Places for People maintains the group has ‘always been private tenants’ and after years of keeping rents low, the housing association wanted to ‘bring the properties up to market value’.

A Places for People spokesperson said: “We’re surprised that customers protested in this way as we held a constructive in-person meeting with them on 10 June, with two of their local councillors present including Coun Hince.

"Claims that we’re not engaging are simply not true.

“Having listened carefully to Customers and hearing their concerns around rent changes, we have an offer for them which we are confident would remove those worries.

"We have made them aware of this.

“However, an ongoing challenge from one of the customers is delaying this as it means we are not legally in a position to discuss that offer openly with customers just yet.

"We will of course keep everyone updated, and customers have also been told they can pay their rent at the pre-review rate pending resolution of the legal challenge. 

“What we must continue to make clear, regardless of the offer we will make to customers, is that these properties are not social homes.

"They are privately-owned and always have been.

“We want to have a resolution, and we are actively working for this.

"We hope that we can bring things to a conclusion as soon as possible for the benefit of everyone.

"Today’s demonstration has been completely unnecessary.”

A spokesperson for PfP, one of the biggest social landlords in the UK, previously explained that their stock of private tenants helped the organisation subsidise affordable housing.

But Ben Clay, a Tenant’s Union representative who attended the protest, said: “There’s no logic to pushing one group of tenants into homelessness through rising rents, so that you can fund subsidised, genuinely affordable housing somewhere else.

"That’s just a crazy system.”

Many of the tenants are elderly or disabled – and have lived in their homes for two or three decades.

For Norma and John Heywood, both in their seventies, the rent hike adds up to £180 a month – a sum John’s army pension simply won’t cover.

And the financial worries are an unwelcome stress while John undergoes palliative care for cancer.

“We just can’t afford it,” Norma previously told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

“We could end up homeless. I don’t know how a move would affect John. It could kill him.”

And 39-year-old Mum Rachael is worried she’ll be ‘kicked out on the streets’ with her two kids, aged two and 13, if she’s officially classed as a private tenant.

As well as protesting, the group is mounting a judicial review against the housing association with the help of the Greater Manchester Law Centre.

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