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Housing association tenants that are disappointed with the service they are receiving should be given the right to switch landlords, a new manifesto published by the London Tenants Federation (LTF) has demanded.
As part of a wide-ranging set of proposals published yesterday, the LTF said that housing association tenants should be given the same rights as council tenants when it comes to scrutinising their landlord.
Currently, council tenants have a number of additional rights to housing association tenants, including the right to submit Freedom of Information requests, collectively request to manage some of the services on their estate and request a stock transfer to another landlord.
The LTF said a “positive future for social housing” would include an extension of the above three rights to housing association tenants.
The London Tenants’ Manifesto contains a number of other proposals grouped around five themes:
Other key proposals include ringfencing government housing grant and suitable public land for the delivery of new social rented homes, alongside tenant involvement in developing design briefs for new and refurbished homes.
Tenants should also be given access to archives containing information on the construction, improvements to and health and safety of their homes, the manifesto said.
Meanwhile, a new ‘local authority housing committee’ model, made up of elected councillors and tenants representatives, should be given the deciding vote on issues relating to their homes.
The manifesto comes two months after the government published the long-awaited Social Housing White Paper, which looks to realign the relationship between tenants and landlords in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.
The white paper included some of the ideas raised in the London Tenants’ Manifesto, such as the extension of Freedom of Information to housing association tenants.
Responding to the white paper at the time, the LTF said the proposals were "disappointingly lacking in substance and new ideas”, but acknowledged that some ideas, such as the extension of Freedom of Information, held promise.
Update: at 10.23am, 21.01.21 This article was updated to make it clear that the LTF said some of the ideas from the Social Housing White Paper held promise.
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