Many councils have to sell council properties, 50 per cent of the money will go to fund maintenance and repairs, due to the effect of negative subsidy payments to the government of several millions a year, this leaves them without sufficient funding for the job in hand to fulfil decent homes requirements.

Councils around the country then give the other 50 per cent from selling council properties to housing associations to go towards building new affordable homes for themselves.

While this indeed provides new homes and a council can say ‘so many new affordable homes have been built this year’, they do not belong to the council and do not provide any housing revenue for it.

The council has the right to take tenants off the waiting list, including future housing association tenants but that is their only power. Not a penny of the rent goes to the council.

Should councils choose to take the self-funding route after the general election, their tenants are concerned that for many years councils will remain in much the same position - still having to sell properties to keep to the decent home standards and will continue to ‘gift aid’ housing associations to fund their affordable homes. From a council tenant’s point of view it is unlikely councils will be building new homes.

Reluctantly, some tenants feel that in some cases councils will prefer not to. This is not what we want to hear, and if we change one form of debt for another, we want any surplus money through whatever means to go on council homes, not funding housing associations.

Council tenants are concerned about who will look after their interests and who will keep any promises made before the election and stick to them.
The Tenants and Council Together group in Winchester is non-political but this does not mean we cannot afford to ask these questions, as much depends on the answers given by the politicians. They must be open, honest and trustworthy - their word should be their bond.

Alan Rickman, joint TACT chair, Winchester

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