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We cannot wait for Brown’s pot of gold
• RAJ Chada, Roger Robinson and the other Labour politicians who attacked Camden Council’s housing policy have got some nerve (Coalition estates plan is ludicrous, May 10). Last year, the new Lib Dem-led council inherited a housing stock suffering from chronic under-investment. This is the legacy of 30 years of Labour rule in Camden and 10 years of a Labour government in Westminster.
Almost half the council homes in Camden do not meet the Government’s Decent Homes Standard. There is a £242 million funding gap, and the council’s repairs service is buckling under the pressure of a surge in call-outs.
Underneath these statistics, there is a human face. Thousands of people are living in sub-standard housing in Camden. I see it every week in my ward of Kilburn – faulty wiring, leaking roofs and kitchens falling apart.
Some people say we should do nothing except keep asking the government for more money. Those people should consider how bad things need to get before they will accept that the government is not listening. The very idea that Prime Minister Brown’s first act will be to write a large cheque for Camden Council is absurd.
We need to be honest with our tenants and leaseholders, and start to look at the feasible options. So, I object to Labour politicians spreading misinformation about the ideas proposed by the council. There will be no sell-off of estates and no one will lose their home. There will be no borough-wide stock transfer and no privatisation.
Instead, the council is considering the sale of a small number of empty properties. It will also talk to residents about the scope for new housing developments to fund estate regeneration. These options may not be ideal but then there are no ideal options on the table. And this could be the only way to bring our housing stock up to modern standards.
We cannot go on practising the politics of “follow the rainbow”. There is no pot of Brown gold. Our residents deserve a realistic plan to deliver decent housing and the council will work with them to deliver it.
CLLR JAMES KING
(Lib Dem) Kilburn ward
• I AM glad to see so many people stand up for council housing and oppose the Conservative-Lib Dem proposals to sell off some of our housing in order to repair the rest.
We should not go down this slippery slope. There is too little public housing, with people having to wait far too long to move out of overcrowded housing and far too long to be housed.
Every home counts in ensuring we are able to provide residents with a good quality of life and children from families of all backgrounds with a good start in life.
I am, however, surprised to see ex-council leader Raj Chada say that this is not the fault of the Labour Party. It is indeed the Labour government which insisted on private ownership or private management before handing over desperately-needed funds.
There is no good justification for this condition, as campaigners have long stated, and it should never have been imposed. And it is this condition that has led to the mess we are now in.
However, Mr Chada is right in saying it is reckless of the new council to put proposals to the government when there is just about to be a change in leadership that may well lead to the release of funds. It does make one wonder how far the new administration is committed to ensuring sufficient public housing.
It is important we all stand together to defend council housing and insist on Camden’s right to its fair share of central funding to improve our housing stock.
CLLR MAYA DE SOUZA
(Green Party) Highgate ward
• IT is the Labour government which is responsible for the crisis in Camden’s housing, a crisis directly attributable to a policy of blackmail – no funding unless you vote for an Almo (Arms’-Length Management Organisation) – directed at Camden tenants and residents over the last 10 years.
The administration would love the government to give us the £242 million we need to bring our housing up to a decent standard. But, with no sign of the money forthcoming, we have to look at the alternatives. One option we are considering is selling a maximum of two per cent of our housing stock in order to raise money to invest in the remaining 98 per cent, which would remain in council hands.
This is just one of a number of proposals for discussion with tenants and residents. No final decisions have been taken. We want as many people as possible to get involved in the debate, but it should be obvious to anyone who walks around our estates or talks to tenants and residents that “do nothing” is simply not an option.
The administration should be commended for taking action on this issue. It would be a gross betrayal of residents if we were to sit on our hands and do nothing while the current crisis gets steadily worse.
DAVID ABRAHAMS
(Lib Dem) Kilburn ward
• AS much as I like barbecues, I would recommend that Councillor Theo Blackwell concentrates his efforts on persuading that Labour Scrooge, Gordon Brown, to release some of the badly-needed £300 million he promised Camden Council to improve its rundown council housing.
The councillor might then begin to understand why his party no longer runs Camden Council and he is left barking at the moon.
CAROLINE MACDONALD
St Augustine’s Road, NW1
• RAJ Chada as an ex-leader of Camden Council will have a much better insight into the power dynamics of central and local government relations than me.
I was therefore perplexed by the points he made on the current administration’s negotiating stance with central government for funding for council housing.
We need to remember that the previous Labour administration was unable to get this funding, and I can only assume its negotiating tactics/strategy was good. To cover the possibility that no funding will be available from government, Camden needs a Plan B.
The current administration would be failing its tenants if it did not discuss fall-back positions, and would be correctly criticised by Labour for not doing so.
What I find most surprising is the assertion that, by doing this, Camden is weakening its negotiating position. Government understands exactly the cards Camden has in its hands.
Perhaps Mr Chada can explain his perception of the pressure points Camden can bring to bear on government and why they should be successful now when they were not last year.
He and his colleagues will no doubt look Mr Brown’s people in the eye and remind them that here there are two Westminster constituencies held by Labour which are both in play. Failure to provide this cash will put them even more in play.
That may well be the key to unlocking the cash, but the administration would be derelict in its duty if it puts the quality of life of present and future tenants at the mercy of such hard-to-predict discussions.
CLLR ROGER FREEMAN
(Con) Swiss Cottage
• HOW dare this council even suggest the sale of council-owned properties? What an insult and a slap in the face to the 77 per cent who voted “No” to Almos and the loss of valuable council housing. Has this council turned its back on democracy?
This is an Almo through the back door. The council should respect the views of tenants and leaseholders and not cowardly cave into this government.
District management committees have unanimously and angrily reacted to any sale. The Lib Dems do not have a mandate for selling council flats, so my message to them is to stand up and fight to defend your homes now.
ELLEN LUBY
Parkhill Road, NW3
• I WELCOME the Labour Party’s firm line against council plans to privatise council housing.
Many people opposed Labour’s Almo plan, but at least a full consultation took place and the ultimate decision was made by tenants via a ballot.
By contrast, the sneaky Lib Dem-Tory alliance is trying to go much further and fully privatise our housing stock without even giving tenants a chance to stop the sell-off.
This might by okay if there was public support for the privatisation plan, but it seems clear that tenants do not want their homes sold off.
What is genuinely outrageous is that the Lib Dems and Tories campaigned on a platform of investment in council housing.
We now need a coalition to stand up for tenants and the principle of council housing.
ANNE DEGENT
Well Walk, NW3
• RAJ Chada is the Labour council leader who sat around for three years hoping the government would relent and give Camden £283 million to do up its homes, after tenants rejected an Almo.
Of that £283 million, Mr Chada managed to secure not a penny. Now he dares lecture us about how we should negotiate.
Most laughable of all, he claims “there is everything to play for”. Has Mr Chada inside knowledge about Gordon Brown’s hitherto well-hidden penchant for open-handed largesse? It is Mr Brown who has been keeping Labour’s purse strings closed on money Camden should have had.
CLLR FARUQUE ANSARI
(Lib Dem) Kentish Town ward
• NEITHER Councillor Chris Naylor or his advisor, Catherine Illingworth, have any idea of the effect on council tenants of what they are planning to do (U-turn as Town Hall plans to sell estates, May 3).
Paddington Churches Housing Association, also known as Genesis Housing Group, is likely to be contenders. It has shut down tenants’ associations, crossed tenants’ names off ballot papers for elections to the board, run committees in total secrecy, and sold several dozen homes at auction.
It has borrowed about £500 million for reasons which are secret, and our rent money appears to be carrying the staggering cost of the interest repayments, which is probably why maintenance is so bad.
It is not alone in its attitudes and policies. The larger housing associations are all much of a muchness.
Cllr Naylor says that the policies will make “a difference in the lot of people’s lives”. Yes, he is correct. They will have no accountability for the bad services they will get. They will have a worthless complaints process, and an ombudsman who is seen by all tenants I have met as a living joke and responsible for the failure of the social housing sector to improve.
As for Ms Illingworth’s “small amount of pain”, there will be a massive amount of pain, followed by a generation’s worth of blame and recrimination, and, of course, the electoral destruction of Lib Dems in Camden.
This administration should buy several complete sets of the BBC’s Yes Minister programme, and ensure all council bosses study them avidly. I will happily provide a three-hour examination paper, and failure to achieve 60 per cent ought to result in disqualification from office.
PETER RUTHERFORD
Independent Federation
of Genesis Residents
• WHEN you buy an ex-local authority flat, it is never “ex” while the communal areas are maintained by the local authority.
Instead of going for exciting trips to Croydon to see how much better they do things there, Councillor Chris Naylor would be better off reading the back issues of the Camden New Journal and the council “walkabout minutes” for the past five years, to see which housing employees are doing their jobs and which are not.
He should also look carefully at housing letters answering complaints. Some responses show a grasp of logic, tact and fairness which would have made Joe Orton proud.
What Cllr Naylor should not be doing is selling off council property assets or freezing caretakers’ jobs, making maintaining properties even more difficult. What he should be doing is calling for Neil Litherland’s resignation as director of housing.
KIM MORRISSEY
Chenies Street, WCI
• THERE are thousands of people on the housing waiting list who are living in overcrowded conditions. Most of the cases I get in my councillor’s surgery are about re-housing, yet we are being told the council has approved plans to sell off housing and properties. Living in overcrowded conditions affects people’s health, children’s educational achievement, social development and welfare.
We know there is a shortage of council housing but now we are being told this will increase because the council has decided to sell off empty houses and properties.
Why don’t they fill those empty houses with people from waiting lists instead of selling them.
CLLR NASIM ALI
(Labour) Regent’s Park ward |
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