Tony Cook
Brighton
I've been a housing co-op member since before the beginning. In the late 80's I helped, as best I could, in the development, management and defence (failed) of CHISEL, a secondary housing co-op. I later played a pivotal role in setting up a national representative body, the Confederation of Co-operative Housing, following its predecessor's demise.
In the wake of debilitating bureaucratisation emanating from government, I have concentrated all my energies in recent years on maintaining the sustainability of my own housing co-operative. I should also add, in case you are wondering, this has been fairly successful despite rather than because of CCH, who have been dismally acquiescent, almost more accountable to government than its membership. There, I said it!
Recent activity
Comments (56)
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Comment on: Aberdeen suspends the right to buy for 10 years
Surprisingly - since the May 2012 election - Aberdeen has been run by Labour in coalition with the Tories and Independents. Previously it was the SNP in coalition with the Liberals (who according to the Scotsman were "decimated").
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Comment on: ALMO offers tenants £29k to buy homes
If the right to buy is musical chairs then this is pass the parcel, what fun!
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Comment on: HCA to trial self-build with five pilots and £30m fund
When I was on the board of CHISEL secondary housing co-op we pioneered self-build as a way of mitigating the costs of borrowing private capital in the provision of social housing. The self-builders were set up as an ownership co-op, constituted to act collectively their own landlord and with plans to register the co-op as a housing association.
By the time they had completed the scheme the rules had been changed and the project handed over to a 'sponsoring' housing association. Who not only owned the new homes but proceeded to deny the new tenants their capacity to self-manage. In effect these self-builders had to go cap in hand to their new masters and apply for a tenancy in the very home they had just built.
Little wonder this route to home-ownership subsequently failed to take off. -
Comment on: It's not always right to buy
Surely this is precisely the wrong time to be encouraging yet more people to take on the life long debt of a mortgage. Just prior to the economic crisis personal debt had risen to a record £1trillion, systemic debt that is presently being called in - hence the crisis. Basically this will contribute to - rather than alleviate -the process of asset stripping as lenders reap the benefits of forfeiture.
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Comment on: South England merger a step closer
As housing associations consolidate into ever larger bodies, their accountability to tenants grows ever more detached from reality. Synergy is a relationship of the parts to the whole not a question of size.
Discussions (1)
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Making criminals of squatters, making sense or madness?
Given the already borderline nature of the squatting life will this inflame or dampen the situation?
In a time of growing homelessness, mortgage foreclosures and austerity cuts wi
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