Forum: Lib Dem Councillor Chris Naylor says "Where’s the money to fix homes?"

Published: 27th May, 2010

The challenge for the new Labour administration in Camden is to show they really do care about 20,000 council tenants waking up in sub-standard homes every day, says Liberal Democrat Chris Naylor

A cross Camden 20,000 council tenants are waking up today in council homes which fail minimum standards and wondering what they have let themselves in for.

When we in the previous administration discovered the state of Camden’s council housing – far worse  than in neighbouring boroughs – we got stuck in and modernised homes for 10,000 tenants, replacing falling-apart kitchens, unhygienic bathrooms, unsafe electrics.
We were committed to fixing another 7,000 homes in coming years but the surprise new Labour council confirmed in office offers no such hope.

Their manifesto makes no commitment to the planned Decent Homes upgrades. One of their first cuts has to be the Decent Homes programme, delaying and postponing these essential works.

In 2006 we inherited from Labour a stock of 24,000 Camden Council homes of which 50 per cent failed minimum standards.
We commissioned an independent survey to tell us how bad the problem was, confirming the government’s previous costing that £283million investment was needed, money which unforgivably the Labour government withheld.

Without this we turned to sales of our worst hard-to-repair council homes to fund the improvements our tenants deserved. Raising funding like this was by no means new.
Camden Labour had sold homes before, 183 in 2000-2006, council reports show, though it’s unclear how the money was used. So between 2007 and 2010 we sold 50 hard-to-repair, ex-tenanted homes to fund modernisations.

Meanwhile, as promised, we raised funds to build 60 new council homes back.
Now Camden’s new Labour council is triumphally celebrating an end to such sales.

No one wants to sell much-needed council homes, of course, but have they thought this through?
Labour present stopping sales as a magic remedy for the thousands on our waiting lists. But selling 50 out of 24,000 homes can have had little effect.
The real culprit was the 9,000 homes they sold when last in charge, without building a single council home back. Labour want to keep all council homes in council hands, a noble aim but where will they find the funds to fix these homes?
The homes we sold were in disrepair and would have cost a £1million or more to update.

Where will they find this extra money? And what about the £30million bill for
day-to-day repairs on our council homes each year? If Labour isn’t modernising homes this will just go up and up, as more and more deteriorate.
Additionally, what about the new plans we agreed to rescue homes at Holly Lodge and Chester Balmore, for instance.

Tenants there were promised as long as 20 years ago that their homes would be fixed. Many still lack heating, or share bathrooms with neighbours. Indeed over a 100 bedsits there have been empty for years – unsafe and unlettable.

I and my colleagues raised many millions to get these homes back into use, providing new council housing for the borough for the first time.
But the price, as we always made clear, was that some new homes would be sold to fund the rest. What does Labour’s blanket
“no-sales” ban mean? Will they keep their promise and scrap these schemes or eat their words and realise that leaving these homes unmodernised and empty is just unacceptable?

I’ve focused on the Decent Homes issue but I should touch briefly on other key points too.
First, overcrowding, which all parties agree is a pernicious problem.

I was pleased to launch a new programme, Pathway for All, which went out to tenants in their homes and helped hundreds of hard-pressed families while I was in charge. I’ve seen no commitment from Labour on this, so is this for the axe?
Secondly fire and electrical safety, highlighted by the Lakanal tragedy and recent problems at Oxenholme.

When I took over there was no regular programme of testing and inspections, and I set aside £3.75million to get this on track.
Will Labour maintain this focus?

Thirdly the consultation launched by the Labour government on housing finance: official figures show this would mean
4 per cent rent increases each year for Camden tenants but, as Defend Council Housing confirm, no extra money for Decent Homes. What is this council doing to fight these proposals?

Labour’s record on council housing in Camden is not good. In 2006 Labour passed on to us some of the worst council housing in London. For our part, we fixed more than 10 per cent of Camden’s homes while we had the chance.

The challenge is for Labour to show they really do care about those 20,000 council tenants waking up every day in sub-standard homes.
This new Labour council may well regret its easy promise to “stop the sales”.
• Liberal Democrat councillor Chris Naylor was Camden’s executive member for housing from 2006 to 2010.