A FIVE-year-old child has developed asthma due to his council living conditions, Southampton doctors say.

Little Bradley Taylor has had to use an inhaler since the age of two because of the damp in his family’s flat.

But despite desperate bids by the family to be rehoused, they are stuck in their seventh floor Canberra Towers flat which doctors say is “riddled” with mould.

Now parents Vanessa and Matthew fear for their youngest child, Bria, 18 months, who has also developed problems with her breathing and has cracked and bleeding eczema on her body due to the damp, the parents say.

Now the family’s plight has been labelled as “disgraceful” by one local councillor.

Southampton Independents Councillor Andrew Pope said he contacted city housing services on the family’s behalf.

He said: “What a disgraceful landlord Southampton City Council Labour is to its tenants and how disrespectful this is to councillors who try to help tenants.”

It comes three years after doctors first wrote to Southampton City Council to say eldest child Bella was seen “on several occasions with upper respiratory tract infections” and asking them “ to review their housing situation as soon as possible”.

Just last year ago they wrote again to “express concerns about their current housing environment” saying that Bradley had been seen with wheeziness, chest infections, and prescribed inhalers”.

Now gran Valerie Taylor says she is “heart-broken” about her grandchildren’s health despite writing “dozens” of letters to housing officials and central government in desperate bids to get the family rehoused.

Dad Matthew said: “It’s depressing. I’ve got psoriasis now. They did come out to treat the damp but it comes back. We’ve spent about £300 on replacing furniture. Everything gets ruined. You don’t expect to buy something and have it ruined.”

Mum Vanessa added: “Bradley comes to me and tells me he’s tired and can’t run around with his friends. All his mates are running around and he can’t do it. He’s not active any more. It’s awful. We can hear Bria breathing at night - she had a really bad chest this week.”

But Southampton City Council said the family are “unlikely” to be rehoused soon.

City housing boss and Woolston ward councillor Warwick Payne said the family are just one in “thousands nationally” who are suffering from overcrowded and damp living conditions.

He said: “That’s why we brought in the damp removal initiative. If it comes back then we treat it again. Because we have got more people in houses there’s more washing and more water and more furniture which makes it harder for us to remove the damp. This is one case. If there is a medical condition we would put greater priority with the case. I can’t give any instruction in terms of how many points a family has. But I can ask the allocations team to look at their case.”