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‘Tenants should choose’
But high-profile Lib Dem stays on fence over privatisation policies
SARAH Teather – the main housing spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats – visited Camden Town on Friday and attacked “Ikea kitchen campaigners” who she says are happy to leave tenants stranded in creaking homes.
But the MP, one of the most recognisable Lib Dems who is a regular panellist on Question Time, would not say whether she was ideologically opposed to government attempts to privatise the running of council estates.
Pressed by the New Journal, Ms Teather simply said: “My ideological view is that tenants should have the right to choose.”
It was pointed out that this did not clear up whether she personally was in favour or opposed to the idea of council housing being run by private operators.
Her visit to estates in Camden Town was a show of support for her Lib Dems colleagues in the borough, who have been the subject of fierce criticism for selling off council homes at auction that might have been used by people on the 17,000 waiting list for accommodation.
Another batch of properties was sold off to private buyers on Monday in a further snub to tenants who have begged the Town Hall to freeze the sales. Among the properties snapped up by developers was a doubled-fronted property in Queen’s Crescent sold for £700,000 and a garden maisonette flat in Harrington Square which sold for £392,000.
Unsurprisingly, Ms Teather was full of support for the Lib Dems’ actions, which the party have attempted to justify by claiming that the money will all go back into refurbishing homes that are not sold off.
She said: “Something has to be done. You can’t just leave people living in sub-standard conditions. It is all very well for people to say do a campaign when they are nice and warm and buying their nice Ikea kitchens and putting it all on their credit cards. These people don’t have this option. It is clear the government is saying no to any more investment and these tenants deserve our help.
“If the cost of making thousands of homes decent homes is selling off a very few number of empty properties, then I think Camden has to go ahead.”
After months of criticism and with a growing campaign against the council’s sell-offs emerging across the borough’s estates, Ms Teather and the Camden Lib Dems are trying to fight back by reminding residents that it was the Labour government that whipped away a promise of millions of pounds worth of investment on the grounds that tenants were unwilling to see their homes privatised.
Government cash has been frozen since tenants voted against setting up an Almo – arms length management organisations – to run their homes five years ago. Labour showed no sign of now providing the money at their annual conference last week, but Housing Minister John Healey did warn that he would review the council’s decision to raise money by selling off properties.
Ms Teather said: “The government has effectively said to tenants you can only have the money for homes if you set up an Almo. That is disgraceful, just not acceptable.”
In her own constituency, Brent East, an Almo was set up and homes were refurbished with government cash.
Lib Dem housing spokeswoman Sarah Teather meets Johnny Murphy |
My hero Housing chief has fan club
HE hasn’t always been Mr Popular in his three years in charge of the council’s housing department, but Lib Dem Chris Naylor certainly has a fan club in one corner of Camden Town.
As part of Sarah Teather’s visit to the borough on Friday, she was taken to the Heybridge estate in Castle Road where residents said a small grant of around £2,000 had helped transform the communal areas. Once a rat-run for scooter-riding teenagers, tenants leader Johnny Murphy said: “We’ve had new security gates put in so that doesn’t happen anymore. The thing about Chris is that if we have a problem, we tell him about it and he listens and tries to help us out.” Five years ago, tenants clashed with the then Labour-run council over the future of the estate and successfully fought off plans to replace a disused playground with another block of homes. |
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