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From the archive: sector rapped over lack of diversity and fire safety
Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week five, 15 and 25 years ago
25 years ago
A local authority said it would no longer welcome visits from housing ministers, after its capital programme was cut by 14% following a visit from Sir George Young.
Reading District Council (town hall pictured) was upset its allocation dropped from £5.97m to £5.15m, and said a presentation to the then Conservative housing minister was a waste of time and money.
Housing chair Jo Lovelock wrote to Sir George and the area’s two MPs in protest. “The visit was a sham,” she said. “We have more than 500 households in temporary accommodation. Tenants were very disillusioned with Sir George’s attitude. The DoE [Department of the Environment, then in charge of housing] insisted that we invite lots of tenants to the presentation, but he wasn’t interested in talking to them on the day.”
15 years ago
Housing associations were told their performance on racial diversity was “not good enough” by the Housing Corporation, the regulator of the English social housing sector at the time, and it was “not going to let this issue go on”.
The corporation had conducted 90 race and cultural diversity reviews of associations across London, and was about to roll out the programme across England.
Shortfalls were discovered in most areas. The corporation’s guidance said the proportion of promotions should reflect the local BME population. But Arvinda Gohil, assistant director at the Housing Corporation, said there was a glass ceiling. “Many associations don’t have any black senior management at all,” she said.
BME tenants were slightly less satisfied than white tenants. And “practically no one” had targets in place for reporting racist harassment, as the guidance required at the time.
Berwyn Kinsey, London regulation manager at the Housing Corporation, said: “There is still not an acceptance among some associations that this is a key element of business.”
Five years ago
Landlords were told to make their tower blocks safer by a coroner, Inside Housing reported on its front page.
Southampton coroner Keith Wiseman wrote to the then housing minister, Mark Prisk, with a series of recommendations following the deaths of firefighters Alan Bannon and James Shears in the city’s Shirley Towers block in April 2010.
Government should encourage social landlords to retrofit sprinklers in all tower blocks over 30 metres high, the coroner told the minister in the letter.
Mr Wiseman’s letter said that “obvious precautions to prevent the fire were not taken”. The firefighters got tangled in cables that had fallen from the ceiling. Operating conditions were “extremely difficult and dangerous”, the coroner said.
