Supported housing residents in Oldham are having to pay 20 times more for their TV licences due to a legislative quirk.

Residents of Hood Square, in Springhead, share facilities with the Lido House home across the road.

However, there is one key difference for residents of Hood Square – they pay hundreds more per year in TV licensing costs.

Cllr Sam Al-Hamdani said: “Literally, if you stand outside one building you can look at the other – it’s like 50 yards away.

"Their laundry facilities are in the other building, their common room is in the other building."

He has accused bosses of playing a blame game when it comes to sorting out the issue.

While Lido House residents pay just £7.50 for a year, Hood Square residents are forced to pay £159 per year – 21 times more.

Susan Broadhurst has lived in Hood Square for 11 years.

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The 73-year-old thinks the situation is unfair, and has sent a letter to the culture secretary to express her concerns.

Mrs Broadhurst said: “We’re all over 65, it’s independent living and we’re all pension age. The same with Lido. We’re no different than them.

“Why do we have to pay that amount and the others don’t?”

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The reason why residents of Hood Square collectively pay thousands more in licensing costs per year? The manager’s office is located in Lido House.

Under current rules, the manager must spend a minimum of 30 hours a week at the property.

If there’s more than one building, it has to be within a ‘common and exclusive boundary’ – something which doesn’t apply as you have to cross the road to get between the two buildings.

This leaves Hood Square residents paying more than Lido, despite being similar in every other way.

A TV Licensing spokesperson said: “People living in sheltered accommodation may be eligible for a concessionary licence if the warden works a minimum of 30 hours a week at the property.

“We are always happy to assist accommodation managers if they are unsure of the eligibility criteria.

"We have further information on our website and our customer relations team is available to provide guidance.

"We also provide training sessions to accommodation managers throughout the UK to ensure they have the information they need.”

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Cllr Al-Hamdani has been working to try to fix the problem. He’s written to TV Licensing and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), but says both ‘blame each other’ for the problem.

He said: “The way the legislation is written for the TV licensing is that it has to be a contiguous boundary, and it isn’t a contiguous boundary.

“So TV Licensing are following the law, but the law is stupid."

He added: “It’s not like they’re taking the mickey or anything, this is one site, it just happens to be a little up the main road and they’re all getting charged an extra 150-odd pounds.

“There’s at least three other split sites in Oldham, and if it’s that case in Oldham, then it’s that case everywhere.

"There’s got to be hundreds of these sites all over the country, where because the manager’s office is in a different bit of the site, people don’t qualify. It must be thousands of pensioners who are paying extra for their TV licence.

“It is a nonsense. It’s a single site, and in all other respects it’s treated as another site, and yet for the TV licence they’re not treated that way.”

A DCMS spokesperson said the BBC administers the TV Licensing scheme.