Elderly tenants of Woking Borough Council have made a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman about the length of time it took to deal with a younger resident who, they say, caused a nuisance and behaved anti-socially for more than two years before he was evicted. The tenants live in Frenchs Wells in Woking. It was originally built for elderly people with first a resident, and then a mobile, warden. In recent years, due to a perceived surplus of elderly people's housing in Woking, Frenchs Wells was re-designated as general needs accommodation and since then allocations have been made to applicants of any age, who were deemed to be in need, and who required one bedroomed accommodation. Some of the younger residents have lifestyles and habits very different from those of the elderly people who have been there for many years.

This is part of a wider picture of what is happening across the UK, as the changes that resulted from, amonst other factors, the move to Supporting People funding in 2003, mean that people do not have to move to sheltered housing to get support. In many areas resident wardens have been replaced by off-site staff or floating support. While this may be beneficial for elderly people who do not want to move to receive support, it can result in sheltered housing being harder to let and resident warden/scheme manager services can become harder to sustain economically. Unless the change of use is handled very sensitively, it can mean stress and misery for the elderly people who remain, and they may have to adapt not just to the loss of their resident warden/scheme manager, but may also find new neighbours do not share their aspirations for a quiet life.

Update February 2009

The Local Government Ombudsman decided that investigation of the complaint should  be discontinued because there did not seem to be evidence of sustained anti-social behaviour which the Council failed to deal with.