Your article on mouldy homes (Crack down on mouldy homes in England or more will die, warns doctors’ body, 10 January) implies that currently there is no law to deal with damp and mouldy homes. That is wrong: local authorities have a duty to deal with such homes already under the Housing Act 2004.
Damp and mould is one of the hazards in the home, where if there is a serious risk of imminent harm to the occupiers, the council can take emergency action to deal with the problem and recharge the owner or prohibit the dwelling’s occupation. The issue is lack of resources in the first place. If Michael Gove were serious about tackling this scandal, he would make the means available for local authorities and their environmental health officers to tackle this increasing problem. That could be done much quicker than any new law (that still has to be enforced).
Dr Stephen Battersby
Vice-president, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health
• Further to the letters on TV productions that have changed history (14 January), we watched the end of Call the Midwife on Sunday to see a social housing tenant in a room full of mould, and children with health complications.
This programme is set in the 1960s, but in 2024 our social housing is no better. As a volunteer for a local charity and a trainee housing expert, I find it astonishing to think that in the last 60 years nothing has improved and landlords are still blaming the tenants. We need an up-to-date version of Cathy Come Home – perhaps Cathy You Can’t Come Home Yet – until the unaffordable rents, no-fault evictions and rampant mould in social housing are sorted. Maybe in another 60 years?
Fran Turner
Milford on Sea, Hampshire
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