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Camden New Journal - by RICHARD OSLEY
Published: 6 December 2007

Storm over ‘tenants are behind us’ claim

Homes chief maintains sell-off plan has support

HOUSING chiefs stand accused of blatant spin-doctoring after making the extraordinary claim that they have the support of tenants over their plans to sell council-owned properties to the private sector.
The claim came in a press release boldly headed “Tenants back plan to solve home cash crisis” issued by the council-run communications department on Tuesday afternoon.
When the New Journal contacted press officials to ask how they could reconcile this with the historic message from Camden’s tenants that they are opposed to all forms of sell-off, they defended their stance but hastily arranged an interview with Liberal Democrat housing supremo Councillor Chris Naylor.
He said the Town Hall had a clear mandate to go ahead with plans to sell empty properties, rather than refurbishing them for use by families on the spiralling waiting list for council homes.
Camden will also be doing deals with housing associations to help clear a backlog of repairs.
Cllr Naylor said: “I absolutely stand by the fact that tenants support our proposals. The results match up with my own experience from talking to tenants. This is a good news story.”
His comments and the press statement – released to the dismay of tenants campaigning for direct government support for Camden’s council homes – refer to the results of a consultation survey filled out by just 1,110 tenants and leaseholders, a response level described as “lightweight” by critics.
The returns amount to about 14 per cent of residents and leave the vast majority of views still largely unaccounted for.
Furthermore, there are grumbles that one of the main questions on Camden’s questionnaire simply asked whether tenants would be happy to see improvements to council estates, rather than tackling crucial issues about ownership and management.
Nevertheless, Cllr Naylor and his aides are taking the results as support for their controversial method of raising funds for repairs and improvements to the rest of the stock. He said: “Like me, residents don’t want to see council homes sold. As government won’t help, we have to raise some funds by selling a small number of our empty homes – but we will only sell homes which are in disrepair.”
In 2004, residents voted against transferring control of council properties to an outside body known as an arms’-length management organisation (Almo).
Pressure group Defend Council Housing campaigner Alan Walter said: “Of course, Camden tenants want our homes modernised and improvements to our estates but tenants ticking yes to improvements in the council’s questionnaire do not give the council a mandate to sell homes and privatise estates.
“The council was clearly too afraid to ask tenants a direct-answer, yes-no question to selling homes and privatising estates. They know what the answer would be.”
Labour’s deputy leader Councillor Theo Blackwell said: “Fewer people responded to the council’s lightweight consultation than voted in favour of the Almo in 2004 so I’m not sure the council can say lots of people back their plans, which haven’t even been spelled out in full.”

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