Anti-bedroom tax group demonstrate outside council office

Around 60 demonstrators protested outside Number One Riverside against the Government's 'bedroom tax'.

Following the protest half the protesters entered the public gallery for a recent council meeting.

Middleton and Rochdale Against the Bedroom Tax chairman, Andrew Pollitt, addressed the council leader Colin Lambert asking if Rochdale councillors would support a pledge of no evictions for bedroom tax arrears.

Councillor Lambert was sympathetic to the requests of the group but said he was sorry he could not presently make that commitment at this point, however, he wanted to make it clear that Rochdale councillors were opposed to the bedroom tax.

Andrew Pollitt pointed out that it would cost somewhere in the region of £6,000 to evict a tenant and that to evict those who cannot afford to pay bedroom tax for arrears of a few hundred pounds would be a costly business for RMBC and lead to increase in homelessness.