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Protesters on Holly Lodge estate, Elizabeth Doherty, Margaret Downing, Grace Livingstone, Jody Roberts and Marese McGrane |
Will jewel-in-crown estate end up in the shop window?
Latest ministerial snub forces Town Hall chiefs to look elsewhere for home repairs cash
YVETTE Cooper is not the first government figure to give short shrift to a plea for investment in Camden’s council homes. She is just the latest in a line of ministers who, for all the shifting sands on national housing policy, have refused to budge on the issue.
Last week, the housing minister wrote to the Town Hall leadership with a warning that it would have to beg elsewhere for the millions of pounds Camden needs to repair its crumbling estates.
Most council correspondence with ministers is kept fiercely private but Ms Cooper’s words were rushed to news agencies at unusual speed, accompanied by a press release maintaining that Camden now has no choice but to find alternative funding.
Nobody in the Lib Dem and Conservative coalition wants to say “we told you so” – that would appear like revelling in the fact that the campaign for direct investment has yet to prise cash out of Whitehall, even at a time when new Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pushed housing up the agenda.
But Ms Cooper’s letter is being held up as justification for the launch of a “regeneration” project which many tenants feel is tantamount to a sell-out, a betrayal of residents’ clear preference of keeping the council as their democratically accountable landlords.
Labour councillors argue that the Lib Dems should have done more to lobby the government during “a window of opportunity” when Mr Brown first began discussing housing – but the starting gun has been fired. Camden’s Liberal Democrat housing chief Councillor Chris Naylor has admitted that he is now considering working with housing associations to pay for urgent refurbishment work.
It has come as no surprise that his first target is the Holly Lodge estate, perhaps the stand-out jewel in Camden’s housing portfolio with its majestic timber-framed homes which for decades have made it possible for some of the borough’s most disadvantaged people to live on the otherwise affluent Highgate slopes.
There will certainly be no shortage of bidders if housing associations are invited to pay for repairs in return for a share of the properties, or even to buy part of the picture-book estate.
The “scandal” – you don’t have to go too far before somebody uses that word – is that, at a time when there is a pressing need for affordable housing, at least two of the seven blocks that run along Makepeace Avenue are vacant. One block has only one tenant, another has a handful. Once a proud symbol of Camden’s historic commitment to providing homes for the needy, they are now regarded by the council, at least, as unfit to live in and too expensive to repair without outside help. Estimates suggest each block would cost £2 million to put right.
It might seem like a lot of money but, in stark contrast, New Journal inquiries have found that just under £10 million has been spent by Camden’s housing department on the desperate measure of putting families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, victims of the housing shortage who would jump at the chance of landing up in Holly Lodge.
Figures released by the council show that four companies each made more than £1 million from Camden’s spending on B&Bs in the last 12 months. It is short-term spending which is not part of a long-term solution, critics say.
Cllr Naylor admitted: “We are spending a lot of money on bed and breakfasts and I wish it was less. We want to bring the figure down but I don’t want to stop being able to help people who come to us in desperate need.”
It is a frustrating situation for tenants on Holly Lodge, who can see bedsits lying empty in the face of such huge demand. If the government will not help, they want Holly Lodge to be repaired from the council’s own funds.
Jody Roberts, who has lived in the Holly Lodge bedsit blocks for eight years, said: “I would love to see my block converted and then given back to council residents. This is a unique place to live and should be valued and honoured. It would be a terrible shame in the long term if they just went private.”
Marese McGrane, who has lived on the estate for six years, is the only tenant left in her block. She fears that, as the blocks lie empty, they will deteriorate to a point where only a private developer will be able to afford to make them habitable.
She said: “It feels slightly ominous not being sure what is going to happen with the building. These kinds of places are rare and must be protected.”
Margaret Downing, chairwoman of Holly Lodge Residents Association, said the estate’s unique history of providing affordable homes to single women must be respected.
“It is a special place and it deserves respect,” she said. “It is not a nice feeling having empty spaces around you. We want the place bubbling again with people, a community of neighbours who enjoy living here. As an asset, once lost it would be virtually irreplaceable.”
Cllr Naylor said: “It took three months just to get a meeting with Yvette Cooper. This does not fill us with optimism that further funding is to be forthcoming.
“We owe it to our tenants to look at other alternatives. We don’t want to let any more of the bedsits out in Holly Lodge at the moment. The ones that are let already have problems, like water outtages and problems with security.”
Ask him about the tenants’ campaign and he will concede that Holly Lodge has the potential to be the envy of other boroughs, but sooner or later he will whip out Ms Cooper’s letter and insist that he has no choice but to consider other funding routes.
He said on Monday: “It was in our manifesto that we would deal with the matter of decent homes for all of our tenants.”
But if tenants did not accept “no” from past housing supremos like Keith Hill or David Miliband, or even Tony Blair, who was once challenged on the issue by the New Journal, many residents will need more than a letter from Ms Cooper to convince them to give up the campaign for direct investment.
Alan Walter, from Defend Council Housing, said: “Ministers always sound bullish about sticking to their guns – that is until they announce a U-turn. No one can pretend we are not making progress.
“Most people recognise that if they make concessions on building new council housing they will have to change the rules on maintaining council homes too. If ministers were really confident about dismissing the ‘Fourth Option’ (direct investment) they would have avoided addressing our demands at all costs.”
He added: “Camden’s councillors have a clear political choice: stand with tenants to win a secure future for council housing or roll over to curry favour with government.” |
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