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From the archive – Islington Council slammed over ‘insulting’ stock transfer vote

Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week five, 15 and 25 years ago

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25 years ago this week - the sector braced for a £800m spending cut #ukhousing

15 years ago this week - Islington Council was facing a government probe into its ALMO ballot #ukhousing

Five years ago this week - there were concerns over changes to a green subsidy #ukhousing

25 years ago

Social housing looked to have been one of the big losers after chancellor Kenneth Clarke announced £5.5bn-worth of spending cuts.

The sector was braced for a cut of £800m in 1994, with the Housing Corporation losing £320m and local authorities set to miss out on £446m.

The National Federation of Housing Associations estimated that the cuts could see up to 16,000 new homes for rent or sale lost in the following year.

Inside Housing said that repairs and capital grants from local authorities for housing associations were likely to be particularly badly hit.

However, councils were also given an opportunity to bid for new money from the £1.4bn urban regeneration budget – to fund inner-city schemes.

The Institute of Housing called the Budget “a disaster for people on low incomes”.

15 years ago

Islington Council in north London was facing a government probe after claims that its ballot on setting up an ALMO was “an insult to democracy”.

Tenants voted in favour of the proposal to establish an ALMO but campaigners asked housing minister Keith Hill to put the process on hold until the government had carried out a full investigation into the poll.

Mr Hill said the campaigners had made a number of “very serious allegations” and promised that the result would not stand if proof was found that the council had behaved improperly.

Less than a quarter of eligible tenants in the borough returned their ballot papers. While the result was in favour of an ALMO, Darius Sokolov, secretary of the Federation of Islington Tenants Association, said the council had “railroaded” tenants.

The group claimed that tenants were given insufficient notice of the ballot, that pro-ALMO publicity was sent alongside ballot papers, and that 1,600 households on one estate were not allowed to vote.

Council leader Steve Hitchins said the council had been “engaging in a debate with the public for the past six or seven months” over the proposal.

Picture: Getty

Five years ago

A government decision to cut a £1.3bn a year green subsidy left hundreds of millions of pounds of social housing retrofit projects at risk.

In his Autumn Statement, chancellor George Osborne confirmed that the coalition government would water down the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) targets, which forced suppliers to make carbon savings by paying for energy efficiency projects in low-income households.

The potential cut in subsidies for retrofit works left a number of projects facing an uncertain future.

Robin Feeley, head of sustainable development at L&Q, which was in negotiations over a £2m ECO deal with an energy firm, said he hoped energy companies would “honour what has been agreed so far”.

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