West End letters: Prepare to fight eviction | War veterans | Sanctuary Housing Association

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 15 August 2008

Prepare to fight eviction

• READING your front page (War veterans face eviction, August 8) I couldn’t help smelling a rat.
It sounds to me like the inaptly named Sanctuary Housing Association is under some commercial pressure to evict the elderly residents of Wolfson House in order to redevelop it. It is a handsome looking building in a desirable area and would have any
red-blooded developer slavering at the mouth.
When Sanctuary lamely declare that they want to redevelop the property “with a view to possibly building affordable homes” (possibly?) it sounds like they scarcely believe their own spin. They are a housing association: affordable homes are what they are meant to be providing and in fact are providing at the moment for the residents of Wolfson House.
The disability regulations they have latched onto have been in force for years. Why do they suddenly matter now? Either they have applied all along or have never been a requirement. But most suspicious of all is Sanctuary’s claim that “failure to meet this legal requirement would mean funding from Westminster council being cut”.
As a housing association they are funded by central government although Westminster may well be the conduit for the money and no doubt wish they didn’t have to pass it on.
Westminster council has always found its social housing responsibilities irksome and has form in this area dating back decades to the era of the gruesome Shirley Porter. More recently her successors managed to dislodge the elderly residents of Macintosh House simultaneously adding insult to injury by depriving them of their secure tenancies.
Whether Sanctuary are under some commercial pressure from Westminster council (or some of their dubious associates) or are in cahoots with them is hard to say but either way the residents and Pauline Vernon from Age Concern urgently need to instruct solicitors to make an application to the courts for an injunction to prevent Sanctuary and Westminster riding roughshod over vulnerable tenants yet again.
Westminster council may well have a permanent majority and not need the votes of those in social housing but housing law applies nationally nevertheless.
Martin Kennedy
Brewer Street, W1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment:

Your comments: