Tenants must not be sidelined
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As the Communities and Local Government department review of the housing revenue account trundles on, all manner of the great and the good, such as the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Local Government Association, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and others, are beginning to make their voices heard and much of their input is very welcome.
So far, however, the most important group of all seems to be pretty well left out of it – the tenants.
It is us who are being robbed by the Treasury, for some of us by as much as half of our rent revenue, and it is us who are having our arms twisted to go for transfer instead of being offered a level financial playing field where a genuine choice can be made. So we should be centrally involved at all stages of the review process, not wheeled in at the last moment to be told what’s been decided for us by all those great and good people.
Defend Council Housing and the Council Housing Group of MPs will attempt to rectify this apparent sidelining of the main stakeholders at a briefing and discussion in the Grimond Room, Portcullis House, Westminster at 6pm on 14 July.
Everyone knows that the current situation for the HRA is unsustainable, but while there is only one way to stand still, there are many ways to move forward.
Tenants must decide which direction is in their interest, and not wait to be told by someone else. Tenants from my city of Cambridge, which has been hit hard by the excessive negative subsidy claw-back, will be there, along with tenants and councillors from other areas. We will also find room for the great and the good if they care to join us, and listen.
John Marais, tenant representative, housing management board, Cambridge
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Readers' comments (1)
kass | 20/07/2008 12:29 pm
London and Quadrant Housing Trust has consistently sidelined its tenants. They say any change of policy has always been proposed to tenants who had the right to 'feedback'... that is a joke because there is no way tenants can check or make sure or control that their feedback was taken seriously and applied seriously. London and Quadrant says they did take it seriously, as they say they take seriously everything else they do, but as we tenants have no power to check and control and demand certain conditions are met it's all a joke. One of London and Quadrant replies said... ".. You can trust us because we have things checked by our lawyers..." OUR lawyers... so we tenants have no choice than trust the landlord and its lawyers (!?)
I leave it to readers to ponder how is it possible that tenants have been put for, what I know at leeast 3, decades in this situation....
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