COMING TOGETHER IN ENGLAND TOO!

JOINT FIGHT

AGAINST

ASSET STRIPPERS

AND BLOATED PROFITS

  

The Scots are now coming together a few days after the 

referendum upheavals... and another coming together is 

also underway, a few miles away on the English side of 

the border.

Here, an upheaval also sparked the coming together This upheaval  was caused by the privatisation of Carlisle council houses.  The  coming together is a way of joining  the efforts of those householders fighting to get justice  from what followed that privatisation.

Venue of  meeting seeking help... Carlisle Cathedral.

What followed  was excessive profit making and asset stripping by the privatisers, Riverside Housing Association, a huge Liverpool based organisation owning more than 50,000 homes.

An estimated three hundred Riverside householders (in three categories) are seeking justice.

Riverside tenants seek justice, its leaseholders seek justice and so do those householders in shared home ownership schemes with  the organisation.

Up to now, each of the three have battled unsuccessfully alone, seeking help from councillors, M.P.s and law centres.

Now the three have come together seeking help from another body, the Church of England.

It was at a meeting with the Church in Carlisle Cathedral Close that the  coming together started. Tenants and leaseholders gave detailed criticism, item by item, of Riverside`s shocking methods, work and operations.

Tenants cannot heat their homes because of botched heating installations, the number of heating breakdowns is soaring and serious criminal problems are being caused by Riverside letting properties to an excessive number released from jail.

Leaseholders` flats are now un-saleable having lost fifty per cent of their value. And Riverside workmanship on the flats is poor and incompetently carried out. Annual service and other charges have rocketed, in one case from £1,250 to £6,000 making leaseholders unable to save for a deposit for a move to a freehold property.

The coming together continues this week with a second meeting of  representatives of the three, called by Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation which is leading the fight.

What about Riverside...any coming together there?

Carol Mathews...salary £182,47... £40.000 better than David Cameron 

New figures show that last year  the organisation had a cash turnover of £293 million and a profit (operating surplus) of £68 million, or 22.5 per cent of  turnover, up from 20.1 per cent the previous year.

Carol Mathews, Riverside`s Chief Executive had a salary of £182, 474, which is £40, 000 more than David Cameron.

And for the freezing tenants  who cannot afford to heat their homes, there is to be an Affordable Warmth Officer with a salary of £23,500 “to offer help to those requiring advice around fuel poverty and energy.” according to  the job description.

But no news at all on how the botched boiler systems are to be repaired, how  the excessive service charges are to be stopped from going through the roof, or how Riverside plans to improve its dodgy repair systems.


Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation.Information about the Federation is available on the first post of this blog, dated March 25 2012

SCOTS` VOTE ECHOES ACROSS THE BORDER

GIVE US A

REFERENDUM

TOO, SAY

FREEZING TENANTS

Scotland`s big debate  is  so deafening today that it can almost  be heard just over the border where a few dozen English people are wishing that they too had an independence referendum.

The independence that these people long for is independence from a landlord they say does not care. It does not care because it allows tenants to continue suffering in their unheated homes.

The sixty or so Longtown tenants are on the brink of their third winter without  heating they can afford.  This week their group  had its third monthly public protest meeting against the Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association.

Something  important emerged from that meeting of the group, Longtown Action for Heat.

It was this: Amazingly, despite two years of protests, meetings and lobbying, no organisation could be found to make the housing giant, Riverside replace or repair its botched heating systems  and give its tenants a warm winter.

Officially, such an organisation does in fact exist and has the job of  policing Riverside and  the other housing associations in the country. That organisation is  a  government-appointed  regulator called the Homes and Communities Agency, a quango.

But is that agency  in any way effective? Could it help the distressed tenants of Longtown? The signs are  very far from hopeful. In fact, they  are disastrous.

By coincidence, on the very day that Longtown Action for Heat was meeting and protesting, the Homes and Communities Agency  published what it called its annual Consumer Regulation Review. It is an unbelievable publication.

In the  year under review, the agency had 509 consumer complaints (similar complaints to those in Longtown). Four hundred and seven of those (80 per cent) could not be dealt with because the agency did not have the power to do it.

The remaining 102 were referred to a panel of the agency but only 40 of these were investigated further. Just three of these, it was decided,  justified any intervention by the agency to put things right.

Just three complaints out of a total of 509!  In  percentage terms, about half of one per cent.

You couldn`t make it up, might  be a fair comment.  

All three  complaints referred to gas safety. One housing association had not serviced a gas boiler for two years, a second association allowed gas safety checks to become overdue and the third association  was found to have  out-of date safety certificates.

What is to be made of derisory results like this? How would the Homes and Community Agency cope if the Longtown tenants presented their complaints- all much more serious and much more numerous than the farcical half of one percent.

Would the agency have the power or the inclimation to deal with them?

The answer  comes in several highly-critical comments  by readers of Inside Housing, the influential  magazine for social housing which published the agency`s review.

Here is one of those reader`s comments;”This review makes my blood boil. Our complaint was dismissed by the agency and we now realise that the main focus of this useless organisation is to dismiss complaints.

“Is it any wonder that housing associations do as they damn well please?”

The Homes and Communities Agency  promises to mend its ways.

In masterly  gobbledegook it explains:”Action has been taken to improve online signposting for tenants and work continues on wider promotion of understanding.”

Yes... you couldn`t make it up.

JAMES BOND AND THE MAN FROM RIVERSIDE... CHAPTER TWO

ASDA  AND THE

PINEAPPLE

TRAIL

MYSTERY

James Bond still has echoes following new revelations about the activities of The Man from Riverside who behaved  like the legendary government secret  agent when he made two  mysterious appearances at meetings of tenants of Riverside Housing Association.

The Man from Riverside disappeared after those meetings.

Now  the Man from Riverside has appeared again. But the mystery deepens with  news of more of his shady activities following the two meetings at Longtown, near Carlisle, where dozens of tenants have got together as a group to fight the Riverside regime and its botched home heating systems which is making their lives a misery.

The latest news of The Man from Riverside is that he has been spotted

trailing one of the tenants who also took part in those two

meetings of the group,  Longtown Action for Heat.

Why that particular tenant should be trailed by The Man from

Riverside  is a mystery. But trailed that tenant was.

Why? The best guess is that the Man from Riverside had some

“information”  about  him and decided  he was “suspect” and needed to be

followed.

The Man from Riverside was spotted  on the trail outside the Carlisle Asda supermarket, of all places. And the trailing of the “suspect” tenant continued inside the store-   the Man from Riverside was seen ducking and diving, dodging shoppers in and out of the aisles of the fruit and veg. section

Then,when he was about to be confronted by the “suspect” tenant, the Man from Riverside hid behind a huge stack of pineapples, all of them buy-one- get-one-free, sometimes known as bogoff.

The”suspect “ tenant  said just that...  bogoff, or stronger words meaning the same thing. And the Man from Riverside disappeared  for a second time.

But questions remain.Was the Man from Riverside playing a game? Or did he have a serious purpose? Or was he off his trolley?

One certain thing has been discovered about the Man from Riverside. He has strong links to Liverpool-based Riverside through its tenants` federation which  Riverside finances and supports.

Another federation, Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation which is totally independent and is backing the Longtown tenants in their fight, wants answers  from the boss of Riverside, Mr Dean Butterworth, the Carlisle regional director.

The  Carlisle Federation has written to Mr Butterworth describing the Man from Riverside as disruptive and trouble-provoking. “What is the role and status of the Man 

from Riverside?” asks the letter.

And how does the role and status relate to the culture of Riverside  which was recently publicly described as too authoritarian. And how does  this role and status relate to Mr Butterworth`s stated aim of  making Riverside a better place within a year?

And how does the role and status of the Man from Riverside help the distressed Longtown tenants  face the imminent coming winter, their third winter without affordable heat at home?