SINGLE parent families housed in cold, cramped, mould-infested flats have spoken out about their experiences.

BBC Newsnight featured mothers and their children who have been assigned properties in a block of flats in Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire by Waltham Forest Council.

The programme, which aired on Tuesday (February 7), showed families from Waltham Forest living in studio flats more than 30 miles from the borough.

Sheila Navacroft, who has lived in Waltham Forest for 10 years, moved into the flat in Herfordshire with her two-day-old daughter after being release from hospital.

In the programme, the single mother said the heating hasn’t worked in four days.

She said: “My biggest worry is the heating because she has to stay warm at night and she doesn’t and if I’m cold I can imagine how she is.”

Abigail Tumfo has been living in the studio flat for three years after the landlord of a private property she was renting evicted her after finding out she was pregnant.

She said: “It’s been a nightmare.

“I went to the council for help and the council was like we don’t have any properties available, the only thing we can do is send you off to Hertfordshire.

“I work in London as well so it has not been easy for me to keep going back and forth, travelling over 20 miles to work every day is a nightmare. I spend more than half my wages on transportation fees.

“My older daughter Maya, she knows that where we live is different from where most people live. Obviously she’s a girl growing up, she wants to play around, she wants to have a normal life like a little girl but she can’t have that.”

Mother-of-two Shakeria Wright said she has been living in the studio flat with her children for six months and they are forced to share a bed.

She said: “It’s not going well at all.

“I emailed them (the council) from October and nobody responded to me.”

Ms Wright claims she was evicted from the housing association property the family was living in after her boyfriend went to prison.

To watch the programme click here.