Homes damage claims ‘are false’

Oct 30 2007 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

DAMAGE to social housing accounts for more than a third of criminal damage reports to police in Wirral – but according to the council many of these were false claims.

Between January and March this year around 650 incidents of criminal damage were reported to police in the borough.

Of these 37% affected properties owned by registered social landlords and many were in those owned by Wirral Partnership Homes (WPH) which has 13,000 homes, making it the borough’s largest Registered Social Landlord.

Now following a partnership between Police, WPH and Wirral Council’s anti-social behaviour team there has been a sharp decline.

Much closer scrutiny by police of reports of criminal damage began in April.

Mark Armstrong, Head of Housing and Strategy for Wirral Partnership Homes, said: “Our tenants are responsible for damage caused to glazing and door locks for example, other than where an offence has been committed.

“However, damage often occurs to tenants’ properties either accidentally – the occupant losing the keys to their home and forcing entry – or due to incidents of anti-social behaviour perpetrated by the tenant or members of their household or visitors.”