Bedroom tax 'drove man to murder his pet pigeons'
Keith Fleetwood, was driven to kill his 50 pet racing pigeons, after being forced to leave his home by the introduction of the so-called bedroom tax. The 62-year old is out of work, and on benefits. He was living in a home with room for his pigeons and two pet dogs, but the introduction of the bedroom tax forced him to move out. Unable to find a home for them he was forced to kill all 50 birds.
His story is told in Channel 5's Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole tonight. He and his wife Marie could not stay in their three bedroom council-funded home, after it was deemed to large. The Mirror reported that he was offered a one bedroom flat by a Housing Association, but it would not let him keep his pets.
Thanks to an appeal by the Liverpool Echo, he was able to rehome his two nine-year-old Rottweilers, but he couldn't find anyone to take on the pigeons. He told he programme: "I had to quite swiftly take hold of every one and snap their necks."
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Bedroom tax
The bedroom tax is actually a benefit cut. From April 2013 the government slashed the housing benefit entitlement for council or housing association tenants who are deemed to have one or more spare rooms. Those with a spare room had their benefit cut 14% while those with two or more had a 25% cut.
The idea was to stop councils paying a small fortune to house couples in four bedroom houses, it also aimed to free up larger properties for families who needed them and were crammed into properties that were far too small for them.
There were arguments on both sides from the outset, but in the intervening months there have been unexpected consequences which would dent the enthusiasm of even the most enthusiastic supporter of the policy.
Unintended consequences
One problem is that many people either didn't want to move, or couldn't find a smaller council property, and couldn't afford to live on reduced benefits. By February of this year it emerged that two thirds of those hit by the 'tax' were in rent arrears.
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In Scotland, meanwhile, Angus Council said in September that it was planning to block off rooms in order to fight the bedroom tax. It said that it didn't have enough smaller properties in which to re-home council tenants affected by the changes, so that in order to stop them getting into debt it would have to seal off a room in their house and brick up the windows in order to get around the rules.
Meanwhile councils have warned that the 'tax' has made it harder for them to rehouse homeless people. The number families downsizing has put pressure on the available smaller properties, and homeless people are unwilling to take on larger properties, because they cannot afford to live on lower housing benefit as a result of having too many spare rooms.
But what do you think? Do these side-effects mean the policy should be scrapped? Let us know in the comments.
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