Professor John Robertson OBA
From BBC England today, the above and:
Complaints about substandard living conditions in social housing in England are more than five times higher than five years ago, according to the housing watchdog. Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway told the BBC an “imbalance of power” in the tenant-landlord relationship was leading to “simmering anger” among those living in social housing.
He warned without change England risked the “managed decline” of social housing. Asbestos, electrical and fire safety issues, pest control and leaks, damp and mould are among the complaints, the watchdog receives. According to the ombudsman’s report, there were 6,380 complaints investigated in the year to March 2025.
BBC Scotland is quiet on this topic today so they have nothing. Earlier in the year, The Herald and the Express played silly beggars with the stats, adding up all the complaints from 2007 to get a big number and, of course, failing to inform us on the trend and the scale of that trend.
Facts are, of course, available to the more discerning reader (you and me).
The Scottish Public Health Services Ombudsman collects complaints statistics, yearly for Housing Association and Local Authority Housing Cases.1
For mould/damp, improvements and renovation, repairs and maintenance, in all, not just social, housing:
2024/2025 – 459
2023/2024 – 408
2022/2023 – 274
The data collection before then is different and so direct comparisons are not possible. Complaints are, on this basis, increasing with a 12% increase in the last year.
However, only 24% of Scotland’s housing is ‘social’2, so the above statistics will be an overstatement for them.
Even if we take the total Scottish figure of 459 complaints last year, that would translate into 4 590 in England. The 6 380 figure for England is thus 39% higher but if we accept that only a quarter of the Scottish complaints come from social housing tenants, it’s 155% higher.
Sources:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I am very sorry about this being O/T but I have just listened to it and just wonder what why oh why is the rest of the world allowing this to happen I am a Scot but live under a Westminster state who does nothing,no matter your politics this will make you cry.
Algeria Shocks the World, HUMILIATES Israel LIVE at UN
I have not posted the link you can look for it if you wish.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks
It’s hard to accept that we live in such awful times after so many historical lessons should have been learned.
John
LikeLiked by 1 person
Also what our parents and grandparents went through re WW2 and even WW1, what was it all for. They suffered so much, most lived in dire poverty, malnutrition was rife, my parents as children in England had no education as their schools were taken over by the army. Some of their family spent years in POW prisons, some never came back from the ‘fighting’.
Then there were the conscientous objectors, locked up for bloody years, no doubt maltreated.
We must make sure that our children and their children if they have them, will not be rich folks’ cannon fodder ever again. No way.
LikeLike
John did you see the thing I sent via Bluesky and in an article yesterday about a Tanzanian new build ship, (though not built in Scotland) ‘stuck in Scotland’, because of defects?
LikeLike