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Why the tenants’ fight for caretakers will go on
• I HOPE Councillor James King listens to the caretakers and tenants who lobbied him at his surgery and that he and his Liberal Democrat colleagues halt the privatisation of estate cleaning (Caretakers set for big protest, November 5).
I went along on Friday night to show the local Labour Party’s support for their case. What the caretakers told me chimes with everything tenants on estates in Kilburn (which trialled the scheme) have said – that Veolia won’t do anywhere near as good a job.
It isn’t just the standard of cleaning, although the experience so far has hardly been positive with tenants reporting broken glass remaining on pathways for days and bags of rubbish left in public spaces, I was told.
It is that so much of what the majority of caretakers do just can’t be written into a contract.
Looking out for elderly or vulnerable residents, taking in occasional deliveries, being a friendly face or just someone to whom you can report problems on your estate – these are all things caretakers do which won’t be in the new contract.
As part of the plans the caretakers that are left will have much bigger patches, so won’t be that really local face people know and trust.
Once again, the ruling Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors have ignored council tenants’ views in their minimal consultation and they plan to roll out their privatised scheme to all estates by January next year.
The local Labour Party and Labour councillors have made clear their opposition to this and we will continue to fight alongside the caretakers and tenants to ensure that estates can keep the caretakers they deserve.
Mike Katz
Chair, Hampstead & Kilburn Labour Party
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