Campaigners appeal against Neath ballot
Anti-stock transfer campaigners in Neath Port Talbot are appealing against a tenant ballot after the council was found to have wrongly withheld key information.
A preliminary decision issued by the information commissioner said that Neath Port Talbot Council should have released the addresses of the 9,300 homes it wanted to transfer to new housing association NPT homes.
Huw Pudner of the Defend Council Housing campaign made a freedom of information request to the council prior to the ballot as he wanted to mailshot the homes with details of the ‘no’ campaign.
After five months, the council told campaigners that it could not supply the list of addresses. The council then won the ballot in March after a £6 million campaign, with 56 per cent of tenants voting for the new housing association.
But the information commissioner has now written to Mr Pudner stating that the council should have supplied the addresses. A final decision from the information commissioner is expected in the next fortnight.
DCH members now plan to demand that the council carries out a new ballot of tenants.
Mr Pudner said: ‘We think that the consultation process was totally flawed. We were not able to put a ‘no’ argument to tenants. All I asked for was the addresses, not the names.’
Robert Rees, head of housing services at the council, said: ‘The council has put forward a strong argument that important issues of data protection and human rights must be a major consideration in determining this case.’
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Readers' comments (4)
Chris Swinn | 06/08/2010 10:28 am
How can Tenants make an informed decision when the councils drown them in £6m of biassed one sided propaganda and spin to bully and blackmail them into accepting transfer? Neath Port Talbot Council are bang to rights and guilt of duplicity and deception!
Don't trust Greeks bearing gifts of uncertain value! The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. The major beneficaries of stock transfer are the charlatan senior management (ex-council officers) and consultants of the transfer housing association.
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Linda Ware | 06/08/2010 3:57 pm
How can Neath Port Talbot claim data protection and human rights when they allowed people working for a proposed Housing Association, which was not even yet a company i.e. NPT Homes to have all these addresses plus names of tenants? The person who has now been selected as the Chief Executive of the new body i.e. NPT Homes Limited was the same person who worked within NPT Council to get the housing stock transferred over at all costs. Surely this person should not have had access to the names of every council tenant and then be given the job of Chief Executive of the Company which subsequntly holds ownership of over £1 billion of assets being handed over to the public sector. Neath Port Talbot CBC has also handed approximately £5 million over to this new Limited Company NPT Homes for them to pay the bills of the transfer without 90% of its own Councillors knowing the loan had been made. The loan apparently was sorted out by the same woman who is now the Chief Executive of NPT Homes, while she was working for NPT Council on the transfer of these homes to the new Company. This lot stinks, the sooner there is another ballot the better and this time lets hear the both sides of the story not vulnerable people being intimidated and frightened into giving away public assets to the private sector. This whole sorry mess needs urgent investigation. Not one council tenant in Neath Port Talbot who has come forward has admitted to voting YES in this ballot. Lets have another ballot handled with United Nations observers :) well other countries get them, why not us ?
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Paul Lynch | 10/08/2010 1:52 pm
It would be poetic justice if Neath Port Talbot Council were tried for serious organised fraud, and for millions of pound given to the prosecution team to put the case against then, whilst denying the Council the opportunity to present any form of defence for themselves...and, of course, deny them a re-trial or appeal... See if they think that's fair, balanced and democratic!
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Anonymous | 10/08/2010 6:39 pm
Oh what a tangled web..! The one sided pro-transfer propaganda put out by NPT Council included telling/misinforming tenants that they would keep their security of tenure if they transferred to a newly created housing association... I wonder how they are feeling now David Cameron has put his foot in it by foolishly saying he would like to end council tenants secure tenancies? Surely these tenants must now realise that only council tenants get secure tenancies?
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