THE FIGHT TO END FAVOURITISM

POLICE CALLED TO

TRIGGER-HAPPY

“RIVERSIDE”

FIGHT BACK

Support  for community  action  against Riverside surged this week and questions continued   about what exactly  the Liverpool housing association is up to  with its 6.000 tenants in the Carlisle area.

Why, for example, was it necessary to call police to a Riverside-supported meeting?

And why did Riverside demolish  West Hill care home for the elderly in Brampton without proper consultation- and against strong opposition- only  to be told now, a couple of years later,  that a  care home was essential for the town.

Brampton`s dire need for a care home was expressed  this week by a leading city councillor, Heather Bradley. at a planning meeting.

Riverside is not catering for that dire need. Impact Housing Association however is,  and is to build a replacement home on another site in the town.

Riverside has now built houses on the vacant West Hill site. Houses presumably are more profitable than a care home.

In Longtown, the action group fighting Riverside for proper heating for its tenants got a boost through a prominent article in the weekly newspaper, the Cumberland News.

“Tenants must speak as one...Action group appoints chairman” said the headline on the article.

The action group is to hold a public meeting in Longtown Community Centre on Thursday (July 10). Jimmy Robb, the chairman is  keen to see councillors at the meeting because tenants feel they have let them down.

Also let down by councillors are Riverside`s 200 leaseholders after they elected Carlisle city councillors Nan and Peter Farmer  to represent them in negotiations to solve their long-standing Riverside problems

But the two Farmer councillors were very selective  about which leaseholders they were prepared to help.

Certainly not leaseholder members of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation. 

These Federation leaseholders sent representatives  to  two of the Farmers` leaseholders`meetings hoping to get help.

But  the two Farmer councillors would have none of it. Before the meetings were allowed to start, the Federation representatives were ordered out.

The representatives quietly refused to budge  and then had to face insults and repeated expressions of support for Riverside.

Finally, at both meetings, the Farmers  called the police  to get the  Federation representatives to leave.

The same thing happened a week ago in the same room of Morton Community Centre at meeting of the Farmers`-run community group, Tenants` and Residents` Association of Morton Park (TRAMP).

Three representatives of the Federation  attended that meeting, all of them anxious to know why Riverside continues with a policy of favouritism: for years Riverside has supported and financed TRAMP but there never has been either finance or support for other similar groups in the city.

But  again, the two Farmers would have none of  it. Before the meeting even started the three Federarion representatives were asked to leave.

And when they quietly refused to budge they faced a torrent of abusive language  and the police were  called for the third time by the two trigger-happy Farmers. The two, incidentally, are no longer councillors.

Needless to say, the leaseholders are no further forward in getting their problems solved. In fact their problems  have increased because  Riverside has brought county court actions against two of them.

And Riverside` policy of favouritism to TRAMP continues.

Brampton is fortunate. It has managed to have Impact.