Birmingham is infamous as the ‘capital of exempt housing’ in Britain, a role facilitated by the now almost-collapsed Labour City Council. Supported Exempt Housing (see ‘Birmingham’s exempt housing scandal’, FRFI 286, February/March 2022) is an entrenched form of extremely profitable slum landlordism for private housing providers in the absence of decent social homes. The Birmingham branch of the Revolutionary Communist Group has been involved in the nascent Park Hill campaign, coordinated by ACORN Birmingham, which seeks to challenge the Section 21 no-fault eviction notices issued to 12 tenants in a block of flats in Moseley.
The block was recently sold by an individual landlord to private investment company DEESOM. The Park Hill evictions signal a continuation of the trend in Birmingham to turn flats into Supported Exempt Housing blocks, whereby the most vulnerable are exploited in slum-like conditions, while landlords profit heavily from housing benefit. They were among a spate of Section 21 notices issued across the city, as landlords cynically rushed to serve them before the Renters’ Rights Act came into force on 1 May 2026.
To join the campaign against these evictions contact us at [email protected] or ACORN at [email protected]
