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Crucial question on pledge to solve the housing crisis
• MANY of us felt heartened to read the New Journal front page (Ken: I’ll find a solution on housing, April 17) but rather less heartened by the news that Camden Council intends to push ahead with a further round of council street property sell-offs despite a further pledge by the mayor’s office to solve Camden’s long-standing housing crisis.
In view of the promise which has been made, Camden Council’s decision to push ahead with these sales can in no way be justified.
In fact, the very least one would expect would be for Camden Council to delay the sales until at least this option is fully explored, especially as the exact sum of money being made available via this route to spend on Camden’s housing stock to meet the decent homes standard appears to be in question as there would now appear to be considerably more available than what was first quoted in Councillor Chris Naylor’s letter to the New Journal of March 27.
It is also crucial to know whether the availability of this vital funding is dependent on whether or not Ken Livingstone is re-elected as mayor and a number of people who attended a local husting’s last week were quick to ask this question.
As some of the answers were not entirely clear it would be most useful to have further clarification on this item.
Last week a number of tenants asked that the mayor’s office personally intervene to stop these sales going ahead – if the money is available then it needs to be spent now!
There does, however, need to be a genuine willingness from all parties involved (Camden Council, the mayor’s office, key councillors) to create a constructive and meaningful dialogue if this process is to be taken forward, even if this does mean, as has already been mentioned, that Camden needs to take the initiative in getting this process started.
As rightly quoted by Ken Livingstone in last week’s New Journal, “Once these homes are sold, we will never be able to get them back.”
In this instance, there are just too many losers, mainly ordinary council tenants and other Camden residents who wait in hope to be offered a suitable council home.
There is also, which is perhaps even more important, an argument against the sale of these properties which can be defended on the strongest moral and social grounds.
David Rodgers
Chair, Camden Association of Street Properties
A sector in trouble?
• ACCORDING to this week’s issue of the magazine Inside Housing, the Housing Corporation, has just announced that it will provide funds for housing associations to buy sub-standard property from developers.
At the same time, Camden Council is selling some of its housing stock to generate funds to repair what remains, while the housing minister, Caroline Flint, already discredited for suggesting that tenants should be evicted if they don’t find jobs, sits in her office, convinced that these anomalies have nothing to do with her. Can tenants be blamed if they think that the social housing sector is run by donkeys?
Peter Rutherford
Independent Federation of
Genesis Residents
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