The new tenants’ champion is already spoiling for a fight with landlords, ministers and millions of potential clients.
Peter Marsh, 39, is to head the Tenant Services Authority (TSA), the new regulator for social housing with powers to remove landlords and set rents, which launches on Monday. He is the former deputy chief executive of the Housing Corporation and his role will be to improve standards in housing association and council homes and ensure that rogue landlords do not exploit tenants.
He will have his work cut out for him with nearly five million on council waiting lists, no houses being built and a deepening recession, but he has ambitious plans. A childhood spent in a council house in Basingstoke fired Mr Marsh’s passion for