Wycombe tainted stock transfer poll
In the first challenge to a stock transfer under the 2009 Communities and Local Government department statutory guidance, tenants are objecting to the stock transfer of Wycombe Council’s 6,126 council homes to a not-for-profit company (insidehousing.co.uk, 7 April).
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We believe that housing privatisation, with a new private sector landlord accessing private finance, would lead to higher rents and inferior tenancy terms.
The outcome of a tenant ballot was 2,661 ‘yes’, and 2,027 ‘no’, but tenant campaigners are asking housing minister Grant Shapps not to sign off the transfer, because Wycombe Council has failed to properly consult tenants as it should have, according to the statutory guidance.
The guidance forbids councils to run a propaganda campaign, or to put tenants under pressure to vote ‘yes’.
Councils must provide ‘full, fair and objective’ information, but in our view Wycombe Council did not explain that some key tenancy rights would be lost on transfer; and nor did it explain what extra services it could provide with a 33 per cent increase in housing resources expected under self-financing from April 2012. Wycombe Council even argued that it would provide a worse service to tenants, with this extra money.
The council enclosed what we consider to be a propaganda leaflet with the ballot papers, and wrote to tenants during the ballot, seeking to discredit ‘vote no’ campaigners. The guidance states councils should do neither of these things.
We are asking Mr Shapps to implement the provisions of the guidance robustly in this case. Taking into account the disproportion of resources, where Wycombe Council spent £1.27 million and the ‘vote no’ campaign spent £1,758, we believe that the council’s malpractices should invalidate the transfer application.
Paul Burnham, co-ordinator, Wycombe Defend Council Housing