AFTER 12 YEARS...AN HISTORIC CHANGE OF POLICY

Council backs

Riverside critics as

election rows loom

Carlisle City Council is showing a growing interest  in tackling the Riverside problems following a recent initiative by an all-party group of councillors.

This initiative has now got the full council`s backing and the  council Leader,  Councillor Colin Glover is working  with individual  councillors to tackle  problems as they arise in their wards.

The councillors are using the Riverside complaints procedure  with the problems and if that does not work, they are ready to report Riverside to the Housing Ombudsman.

The  coming council elections  next month and the general election on May 7   are likely to concentrate the minds of councillors on the issues as Riverside and its problems are likely to be an  election issue.

In the  city`s Morton ward, a Liberal Democrat plans to fight on  an anti- Riverside ticket.A similar fight is planned in Yewdale  where a UKIP candidate plans  the same attack. There is also considerable interest in getting an anti-Riverside campaign underway in Longtown

where about 60 Riverside  tenants have struggled through their third winter in freezing homes which they cannot  afford to heat.

 Riverside is expected to  be an issue in  the Penrith and the Border constituency where both the UKIP and the Liberal Democrat condidates are members of the Cumbria Riverside Action Group.This group which aims to  make Riverside more accountable meets again later this month.

These critics of Riverside also welcomed the city council`s intervention as historic.This is the  first  time the   council has challenged Riverside since the city council houses were privatised and handed to Riverside twelve years ago.

Critics of Riverside  have been led by the Carlisle community group, Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation. For many years, the Federation has been threatened by Riverside, particularly  when it urged the council to intervene and help Riverside tenants and leaseholders.Riverside  attempted to abolish the Federation after it abolished other community groups in the city.

A Federation spokesman said today: “The council has always backed away from intervening against Riverside. It  always said Riverside  was a separate body and the council had no power to intervene.

“This intervention marks a clear change in the policy of councillors from the policy that has continued for  12 years.

“ We wish Councillor Glover and  the councillors well in this intervention and hope that it brings a quick resolution of all the many problems that Riverside tenants and leaseholders  are now battling with.”