'Devastating': Residents in freezing council block fear potential rent increase

Residents battling to pay the bills in a Salford Council housing complex say a proposed 4.1 percent rent increase would be ‘devastating’ to them. Tenants in the Pendleton Together-managed flats have faced numerous issues with their apartments over the years.

People living in the Pendleton flats say they have to spend hundreds on energy — due to a combination of dangerous cladding being removed in the wake of the Grenfell disaster and a heating system which relies on insulation to keep warm. The NIBE heaters use vents to the exterior of the building to draw fresh air in, which is then warmed up and circulated.

However, when the outside temperature drops below 16C, the system goes to ‘electric-only mode’, which residents say, in effect, means they have to run an immersion heater ‘24 hours a day’ — leading to sky-high bills for some of Salford’s poorest residents.

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Now, after a meeting between the residents and city mayor Paul Dennett, the proposed rent increase has been suspended, after being ‘called in’ by Coun Robin Garrido. But many fear that it will be pushed through after the council elections on May 5.

“[Increasing rent] would have a devastating effect,” Eithne Crawson told the Manchester Evening News. “It is hard at the moment with everything else going up. We have to put that much money in the meter to get some heat… we have to feed ourselves, it’s just non-existent.”

Normally, the 69-year-old, who lives in Holm Court with husband Martin, an army veteran, has to put £100 into her meter to pay for energy. With the latest rise in the cost of living, Eithne says this figure is now ‘£40 or