Row as Shelter posters attack Ideal Home Show

Homeless charity Shelter is at the centre of a row today after it placed graphic billboard posters attacking the Autumn Ideal Home Show yards from the venue.

The posters in Earl's Court Tube station show run-down bedsits and disgusting lavatories with the words "Ideal Home" superimposed. In graffitistyle writing, the posters say "sick, terrible, vile and horrible".

They are part of Shelter's ?123,000 advertising campaign to raise awareness about children living in overcrowded and squalid conditions.

But they drew a furious reaction from the organisers of the exhibition, which opens today.

The Earls Court Exhibition Centre said: "We are extremely disappointed that Shelter has chosen to attack the show. We are currently working with a charity that focuses on housing issues for children-and Capital FM's Help A London Child is the show's designated fundraising charity." It said the show had helped raise ?500,000 in five years for children's charities.

Shelter director Adam Sampson said: "Only a fraction of us are aware that over one million children are suf fering because of bad housing.

"It is only by bringing this scandal to the heart of the housing debate in Britain that we can create change."