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Still waiting for homes
• DOES Gordon Brown have a housing policy?
The Prime Minister’s recent statement Building Britain puts social housing at the centre of changes to public services.
The most significant change is increased investment and the return to local authorities of receipts from council house sales. Refurbishment is not mentioned and it remains to be seen whether Camden will get its £283million to bring existing stock up to standard.
There are two issues to be addressed.
First, for at least 20 years not enough homes have been built.
Secondly, most of what has been built has not gone to those most in need.
Camden’s waiting list has gone from 12,000 to 17,000 while the Treasury has quietly siphoned off surplus rental income from council housing.
To put it more bluntly, the growth of the queue has been accompanied by the theft of profits from rents and Right-to-Buy sales.
The worst effect has been to create an immense wall of frustration and unmet needs. Social landlords will now be required to give higher priority to local applicants who have been on their waiting lists for a long time. Without increasing the supply of housing, however, there can be no flexibility. Government and Camden need to accept that they have lost 20 years.
The change in direction has no substance and gives no evidence of clear, well thought out policy-making.
Recent events add to the difficulties.
How can those on Camden’s waiting list and over-crowded estates be expected to trust or sit down with MPs, many of whom have two or even three homes, and discuss issues of fairness and justice?
TOM COSTELLO
NW1
No sell-offs
• CAMDEN Council continues to auction off more council homes in defiance of tenants’ democratic objections.
But cracks are appearing. Councillors postponed again a decision on a disastrous “market renting” plan for council homes.
So we support the calling for a public meeting, July 27, 7pm at Camden Town Hall, to insist councillors listen to the people of Camden and stop the sell-offs.
It is up to ordinary tenants to take this process forward and organise any joint deputation to the housing minister. For this reason it is crucial as many Camden councillors as possible, from different political parties, attend the meeting so we can discuss how to progress the deputation. We need a genuine and joint effort from tenants, unions and elected councillors.
Last week government announced money for 3,000 new council homes, and promised capital investment to ensure councils can improve and maintain all our homes. Our council leaders should be first at government’s door in a joint deputation with tenants to demand the funding we need to invest in existing and new council homes.
With overcrowding, homelessness and repossessions soaring, and young people trapped with no chance of a home of their own, we must make the council listen. We also support those living in temporary homeless hostels fighting against plans to sell them off, condemning hundreds more families to private renting hell.
With nearly 18,000 on Camden’s housing waiting list it is wanton misuse of public assets to continue to sell off much-needed council homes. Camden should be buying up empty homes and planning new estates on the sites round King’s Cross and British Library. We ask all readers to help. Call or write to your councillor, circulate our leaflet and petition to your friends and neighbours, in shops and estate noticeboards (call 020 7383 2227 or download from www.camdenfed.org), discuss it at your tenants’, community, union or other organisation, and come to the Town Hall on 27th to insist on “No Sell Offs” and make our council listen.
DEREK JARMAN
Vice-chair Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations
Mike Cookson Taylor
Chair Camden Association of Street Properties
Meric Apak
Chair Kentish Town DMC
Laraine Revah
Chair Gospel Oak DMC
Candy Udwin
Camden Defend Council Housing
George Binette
Chair Camden Trades Council
David Eggmore
Secretary Camden Unison
Legal hitch
• BEFORE everyone gets over-excited about Gordon Brown’s supposed promises on housing they should realise the following:
1. His “social housing for local people” is as bogus as his “British jobs for British people”. Such preference would fall foul of both British and European law; British law because of the requirements of our equality legislation and the obligation on councils to house vulnerable people in need, especially those with dependent children, and European law because any person legitimately resident in the EU has the right to move to any part of the EU and receive equivalent treatment in terms of social provision to the citizens of the receiving state. It is also probable that the Human Rights Act would come into play, most probably with the clause relating to the right to enjoy a private life.
2. The proposed building of 95,000 new “affordable” homes is minute compared with the need or what would be physically possible. (council house building reached a peak of 300,000 per annum in the mid-1950s to give a comparison.)
3. Many of the 95,000 homes would be for part-ownership or use by housing associations, neither of which gives those living in them the security of tenure or influence over rent and other charges which being a council house tenant brings.
4. Even if legislation is not required (not clear at this point), there is simply not time to put large-scale contracts out for tender, complete the legally required competitive bidding process and sign the contracts before the general election.
5. It is as certain as it is possible to be in politics that the next government will be a Tory one. (Since polling began in Britain in the 1940s, no government has been so consistently far behind in the polls this close to a general election as Labour currently is and won). If the Tories do form a government they can, and most probably will, scrap Brown’s plans.
Brown’s promises on housing and other matters, such as the NHS, should be seen for what they are, a cynical attempt to minimise the damage to Labour at the next election.
ROBERT HENDERSON
Chalton Street, London NW1
Service costs
• TENANTS have been writing to you regularly opposing Camden selling off its housing to pay for Decent Homes repairs.
In his article of July 2, Richard Osley showed that this opposition has had no effect so far.
Camden Council is spending lots of housing money on unnecessary bureaucracy which could be redirected to repairs. And, there is a way to help see this happens.
Information Camden gave to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy shows its administrative costs for managing contractors doing repairs and services in 2007 were the highest of the 12 inner-London boroughs.
They had increased by 35 per cent since 2003.
At a time when most businesses count every penny, the council is sometimes adding 40 per cent in management costs to actual contract values. For example, to every pound spent changing light bulbs, the Town Hall adds over 40 pence in administration. It’s too much and unreasonable, according to common business practices, and unaffordable in a recession.
In January, the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal ruled these costs to be unreasonable. Camden has still to respond to this ruling. That month, the district management committees supported reducing administration costs, and later the housing and adult care scrutiny committee did too.
To date, nothing has happened.
The public can inspect and query Camden’s accounts for the last financial year until July 24, at the Town Hall building in Argyle Street. And from July 27 electors will be able to ask Mr PM Johnstone of the Audit Commission questions about the accounts, or even object to costs and ask the auditor to issue a report in the public interest.
He can be reached at 0844 798 2304 or
p-johnstone @audit-commission.gov.uk
Maybe it’s time for Camden leaseholders and tenants to ask him about the Town Hall’s service costs at the time when most businesses are trying to cut them during this economic turmoil.
Both groups stand to gain; bringing Camden’s costs down from the 2007 level to the then inner-London average would save about £7million a year. This could mean no more house sales and lower bills for leaseholders.
PETER WRIGHT
Chairman Camden Leaseholders Forum
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