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You and Yours: Credit debt, Billboards

Credit debt, Billboards

04/11/2016

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Credit debt, Billboards

Credit and debt, billboards, tenancy fraud, ear worms.

How many billboards did you pass today and do you remember what they were advertising? We went to a roadside in Manchester to see if billboards had caught anyone's attention.

People borrowing on credit cards and unsecured loans in the UK is now an all-time high. Credit card, overdraft and personal loan debt now stands at the equivalent of close to £10,000 for every household in the country. And the experts say its not sustainable and are warning that debt as a proportion of household income set to reach around 165 per cent by 2020, a level last seen in the run-up to the financial crisis. 
Local councils are clamping down on tenants they claim are on the take.

One council in London has managed to reclaim 166 council properties over the last two years which were being illegally sublet. Now other councils are offering amnesties to tenants before beginning a series of prosecutions. Our reporter Claire Savage has been looking at this story. 

The takeaway delivery market is booming - figures out this week from the British Hospitality Association showed a 54% increase in the amount of food we get brought to our door. A lot of that growth is down to companies like Deliveroo, whose riders with rucksacks filled with food are now part of the urban landscape. But one listener thinks we might be taking a chance on our health if we order from them. Leo Andrews from London spoke to our reporter Simon Hoban:

The government is consulting on whether tighter regulation is needed on shared accomodation. At the moment a House of Multiple Occupation or HMO's as they're know has to have a license if 5 or more people share over 3 stories. This could now change meaning any story house containing 5 unrelated people would need a license... It would be mean hundreds of thousands of more houses would have to follow tighter rules Local authorities say the legislation will help raise standards but landlords argue the extra costs involved could drive up rents.. Our reporter Rajeev Gupta has been finding out more...

Why do certain songs get stuck in your head? Researchers at Goldsmiths University think 'earworms' as they're often called have certain similar traits - in fact they're quite similar to nursery rhymes. You're not going to thank us for this, but here's four of the top ten earworms that people reported in the Goldsmiths research.


Presenter: Peter White
Editor: Chas Watkin.

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