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From the archive – Camden Council in crisis after ALMO rejection
Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week five, 15 and 25 years ago
25 years ago
Details of a pending government review of homelessness legislation began to emerge, with a Westminster Council proposal to reduce the numbers of people accepted as homeless expected to be at the centre of changes, Inside Housing reported.
The plan – outlined in a council document produced the previous year – would see a reduction in local authorities’ housing responsibilities to single people and lone parents living with relatives.
Housing minister George Young also suggested that the review would see people he described as “homeless at home” no longer automatically rehoused. Discussing the review, he claimed that 10% of those accepted as homeless by councils “are actually at home”.
In the third quarter of 1993, English councils reported 9,360 households as “homeless at home”.
15 years ago
Housing minister Keith Hill promised to work with Camden Council in north London to help it meet its Decent Homes targets after the borough’s plans to set up an ALMO were rejected in a tenant ballot.
The poll – in which 77% of voters said ‘no’ – was the first time any council’s proposal to set up an ALMO had been thrown out. It also killed off Camden’s plan to secure £283m in extra investment in its stock.
The government had promised extra funding only to councils setting up ALMOs, or pursuing stock transfers or private finance initiative deals. However, Camden’s leadership was pressing the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to soften its stance.
Speaking to Inside Housing after a meeting with Mr Hill, council housing director Neil Litherland said it had been “constructive”.
The anti-ALMO campaign group Defend Council Housing said the result of the Camden ballot would send shockwaves through national and local government. But Gordon Perry, then chair of the National Federation of ALMOs, described the claim as “absolute rubbish” and slammed Defend Council Housing as “dinosaurs from a previous age”.
Five years ago
The first tenant management organisation (TMO) to apply for a stock transfer in London under new powers was about to fight a supervision order threatening to delay the deal.
Patmos Area Community Conservation Association (PACCA) had applied to Lambeth Council (town hall left) for a stock transfer, using new regulations under which councils were forced to co-operate with groups of tenants who wanted to take ownership of their estates. But it later emerged that PACCA had been under supervision from Lambeth, after the council commissioned PwC to investigate the TMO’s finances.
Although Lambeth could not refuse the stock transfer except under exceptional circumstances, the council would not go ahead while a supervision order was in place.
