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Sales of estate homes are an affront to our people
• WINSHAM House, in the Churchway estate, in Somers Town, is a perfectly ok block.
There’s no excuse for the council to flog off a flat in it, as we’ve just discovered they are going to do next week.
While it’s grotesque to sell off council housing wherever it is, doing so on an estate and in an area where so many are living in appallingly overcrowded conditions, just really highlights what an arrogant slap in the face to Camden residents the policy of sell-offs is.
Maybe Councillor Chris Naylor, the executive member for housing, would like to come here and explain himself to those living here?
Perhaps he’d be willing to meet those on the 17,000-long waiting list who could have applied to live in this flat?
While this, and other such sell-offs, is an utter affront to the people of Camden, the council doesn’t even seem to be bothering to get the best price: there is no For Sale By Auction notice, with contact details, displayed outside the flat.
Perhaps they are simply too ashamed of what they are doing. Perhaps they do not wish to draw attention to their pursuit of a profoundly unpopular policy and hope the sale of a vacant council home will slip by unnoticed, but isn’t it at least a requirement that if the council flog off their assets they should take steps to ensure the best price is obtained, rather than a cut price bargain given?
We’ve heard that the council now offers overcrowded tenants advice on “how to make the best use of your living space”.
Or is this just satirical rumour?
Perhaps Cllr Naylor, when he comes here to defend the sale of a council flat on our hard-pressed estate, would care to give a few “helpful hints”?
But surely this sell-off policy, its increasingly wild implementation, and the whole question of getting the best price needs to be seriously looked at.
Derek Nesbitt, Chair
Miranda Martin, Secretary
Churchway Tenants and Residents Association,
Somers Town, NW1
Labour is culpable
• IN the discussion about the sale of council housing there appears to be a general tendency to brush aside the previous Labour council’s role in all of this, along with the lack of interest shown by the Labour government.
I am fundamentally against the sale of council houses and I have not forgotten that the Labour council in conjunction with the Labour government sold off 4,000 homes in Camden between 1997 and 2005 under a range of policies.
I used to think, for example, that the last Labour council’s policy of selling council houses to housing associations was acceptable. But, now the house next door but one to me has been sold off to developers by such a housing association.
These associations seem to be in the same position as the current council in that they, too, have to find new ways of raising funds to maintain their existing properties.
What is even more galling is that the Labour government did not hold true to its principles and regrettably took a conscious decision to continue the Tories’ right-to-buy policy.
That is not the action of a government that is concerned with maintaining Camden’s housing stock. As far as I am aware, the government did not return the money from the sale of those homes to Camden Council.
We are now faced with a situation where this government has deprived Camden of £283million and to this day has refused to hand over the money; despite the promise from ministers to make funds available. Who can forget the promises made by those seeking the deputy leadership and what they said at the meeting in the Irish Centre?
Regrettably they have. As a direct result of this starvation of funds Labour has allowed 15,000 our local housing stock to run to rack and ruin.
From my perspective the current council is making the best of a bad job that is not of its own making. The fault for all of this lies at the door of the Labour government, the previous Labour council and, indeed, our own Labour MP for not pressing the government more on this whole issue over the past 12 years.
Caroline Macdonald, NW1
How would they pay?
• SOME members of the Labour Party were putting out leaflets at the King’s Cross County Show attacking the sales of council homes in order to fund the Decent Homes repairs programme.
It made me think that the luxury of being in opposition is that you can, if you want, spend your time opposing everything rather than proposing anything.
I’d be very interested to know how Labour would fund the programme to bring up to scratch the 10,000 council homes that have been left in a shoddy state for so long.
I am sure that council tenants would want to know too.
Promising to keep knocking on Gordon Brown’s door for months and years doesn’t sound good enough – particularly if he’s moved out.
Patrick Joy
Bedford Avenue, WC2
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