'Please let me go home (From Barry And District News)

'Please let me go home

A reluctant Rhoose resident claims he is 'losing the will to live' after a housing battle drove him to depression.

Disabled Roger Griffiths, 51, who lived in the town for 26 years, has been forced to move to the area from Penarth because of a council homes shortage.

The transfer has left the former St Cyres School caretaker bitter, depressed and "feeling like a fish out of water".

Mr Griffiths told the News: "My problems began when my health deteriorated. In 1998, two discs in my spine collapsed. I had operations in June, August and October. I have plates in my spine, and nearly lost my life twice."

The pain eventually forced Mr Griffiths to retire from St Cyres on grounds of ill-health, thus losing his three-bedroomed home in the school grounds.

He said: "The school needed the house back. But I dug my heels in until August 2000, waiting for the Vale of Glamorgan Council to find me a place in Penarth."

But Mr Griffiths was out of luck.

Vale of Glamorgan Council policy means that residents of Prince Charles Court, known locally as the Billy Banks, take priority. They urgently need to be rehoused as part of a redevelopment plan but if they are not satisfied with the rehousing offered to them, they can refuse to move.

And until this backlog is sorted out all other Penarth rehousing cases are being put on hold. This situation has left Mr Griffiths with severe depression.

He said: "These people are causing me misery. If they would only co-operate, others in my position could move through the system. I miss everything about Penarth - my friends, my family. I lived there since January 1, 1976. And I want to come home."