INCENSED residents mounted a protest over so-called "bedroom tax" outside Wirral’s biggest social landlord today.

Waving banners and placards, they staged a demonstration at the HQ of Magenta Housing in Hamilton Street.

Campaigner Robert Claridge, from Port Sunlight, said: “There are 3,600 tenants on Wirral affected by bedroom tax. Around 85 to 90 per cent of these people live in Magenta properties.

“This is a vicious and vindictive tax. Magenta has the choice to remove this by re-defining the size of a bedroom.”

Protestors from action groups in south Wirral and Woodward Road estate presented petitions to Magenta Housing directors calling for a spare bedroom to be defined as being greater than 70 square feet.

Mr Claridge said that rooms currently being levied for bedroom tax are not big enough to accommodate a bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers.

New Government legislation introduced in April means that all social housing tenants are levied a tax on spare bedrooms. Pensioners are exempt.

He added: “Why should anyone be forced to move out of homes they may have lived in for 30, 40 or 50 years?

“They are trying to destroy all the rights and conditions of tenants that were established in 1945. They want to destroy every aspect of state welfare.”

Protesting through a megaphone, he joined tenants as they chanted: ‘Axe, axe, the bedroom tax.’

Magenta Living confirmed they received 23 letters today accusing them of ‘failing to correctly classify one of their upstairs rooms’.

A spokesman said: “In relation to occupancy and the payment of housing benefit, the welfare reform legislation does not define what constitutes a bedroom.

“However, our staff will now contact each of the letter writers to offer to assess the size of the bedroom that is being complained of.”

Meanwhile, a new poll suggests strong public support for reducing under-occupation and overcrowding in social housing.

In a poll conducted by Ipsos MORI, 78 per cent of respondents said they thought it was important to tackle the problem, which, according to the Government has led to nearly one-third of social housing tenants who receive Housing Benefit living in homes that are "too big" for their needs.

In comparison, just 14 per cent disagreed, with a further nine per cent undecided.

Minister for Employment, Wirral West MP Esther McVey, said:
 “This shows that the public agree that action was needed to tackle overcrowding and to make better use of our housing stock.

“There were approaching 1m spare bedrooms being paid for by Housing Benefit, yet at the same time hundreds of thousands of families living in overcrowded social housing.

"This disparity was unfair and had to be addressed.

“On top of this we have seen our Housing Benefit bill exceed £24 billion - an increase of 50 per cent in just ten years - and this had to be brought under control.”