Wakefield must avoid the bite of illegal loan sharks

A national expert on loan sharks and doorstep lenders gave a presentation to the Yorkshire and Humber region’s most important authorities last week to highlight some of the financial issues that are taking place across the Wakefield district.

Mike McAughtrie, Financial Inclusion Partnership Officer for ‘Stop Loan Sharks’ – a governing body that targets unlicensed money lenders – visited Wakefield and District Housing’s (WDH) headquarters at Merefield House in Glasshoughton, West Yorkshire, to underline the dangers of loan sharks and the problems they create on housing estates.

In a key speech at a Yorkshire and Humberside Financial Inclusion Practitioner Group that addressed representatives including WDH, Yorkshire Housing and the National Housing Federation, Mr McAughtrie said that doorstep lending was an ‘unseen crime’ that trapped people ‘in a payment cycle that they can’t break’.

Stop Loan Sharks has been working with WDH to identify and stop illegal doorstep lenders operating across the Wakefield district – including the Eastmoor estate in Wakefield.

Mr McAughtrie said: “We liaise with a number of housing associations including WDH in order to get the right intelligence and act upon it. Unfortunately doorstep lenders are on the increase as credit becomes more difficult to get elsewhere.

“Sadly the recorded crimes are not being committed by the loan sharks but by borrowers who resort to stealing in an attempt to repay their escalating debt. They become trapped in a payment cycle that they can’t break.”

Through partnership work with WDH, Stop Loan Sharks believes it is making progress in Eastmoor, where a recent study showed that one in four households declared they were experiencing financial hardship.

“We continue to work with housing providers across the region to stop this unseen crime, and since 2004 we have helped over 11,500 customers of loan sharks and written off over £31m of illegal debt,” said Mr McAughtrie.

“There is no interest rate cap in this country. Illegal money lending, however big or small, has to stop.”

Craig Wood, the head of WDH’s specialist Debt Team, says the support of Stop Loan Sharks is helping to make a difference on WDH estates.

He said: “Our partnership work is helping us to reduce rent arrears and, as a result, it’s meaning a drop in crime and a drop in anti-social behaviour. It’s also increasing the desirability of our estates like Eastmoor and improving people’s aspirations and wellbeing.

“We are targeting other areas of the district and we hope to achieve the same results.”