CASH-STRAPPED tenants are celebrating a council decision to cut their rent by £45 a week.

The 84 households on the Drayton Bridge Estate in Drayton Bridge Road, West Ealing have been fighting for 13 years to get their rent placed on a par with council tenants in other parts of the borough.

And on Wednesday (Dec 19), councillors were set to agree to cut rents from £173 per week to £128.97 with effect from April 2002.

Welcoming the ruling, Andy Smith, chairman of Drayton Bridge Residents' Association, said: "We are happy that the council has come up with a new figure. But after 13 years of fighting, you'd think they'd have agreed to make the changes with immediate effect and hence give us a bit of a Christmas."

Mr Smith and his wife Tracy have lived on the estate since 1989 when the council presented it as their only choice, despite the Smiths protesting that they couldn't afford to move into a property with high rent.

Mr Smith said: "We've been trapped in this prison for almost 13 years. We couldn't get on the transfer list because nobody would exchange with us. All this time, nobody from the council has been able to explain why we pay double the average council rent.

"It's been a tragic waste of taxpayers' money because 95 per cent of the 84 households involved have been forced onto housing benefits as it was cheaper for us to be unemployed. I'm a stonemason who hasn't worked since January because I couldn't pay the rent out of my wages. We've had 10 eviction letters and each one means a new battle. It made me so ill with anxiety that the doctor had to prescribe drugs to relax me. I have four children and we now bring them up on my dole money and Tracy's wage as a school dinner lady. It's been a terrible strain."

He added: "The association is arranging to take joint legal action to try and refund the poor tenants that did pay full rent for so many years.

"The ineptitude of the council has prevented us from bringing up our families in the way that we deserved to."

Director of Housing Finance Maqsood Sheikh said: "Council rent is supposed to reflect the facilities available to the property and these properties are among the most upmarket in Ealing.

"It's not an easy process to review rent which is why it has taken so long."