hOMES STRIPPED FOR HEROES

TODAY`S `HEROES`

`

ARE THE

ASSET STRIPPERS

The poppies are back again as we head for November 11. Armistice Day this year, as we know, has an added memory, coming so close to the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.

Armistice Day this year has another added memory, a memory without the horror of war. Armistice Day comes close to the centenary of the start of council house building in Britain. In Carlisle, this centenary was three years earlier with the first council houses built in Willowholme-on the present Sainsbury site- in 1911.

By the end of the war in 1918,  the cry was for homes fit for heroes-an election call made by the wartime prime minister, David Lloyd George- and council housing  on a massive scale was ordered by  his government. Council housing would change our towns for ever. 

An Act of Parliament in 1919 made housing for the first time a national responsibility. Local authorities were given the job of developing new housing where it was needed

Today, many thousands of council homes later, there is not much talk of heroes or  the responsibility of the nation to house those in need.

All that has been forgotten.

Sadly, today the talk is of stripping away that great legacy of houses built up  by generations of city councillors, and financed  with money collected in taxes from  people in the Carlisle area.

After today`s stripping away, the cash reserves of the housing associations are now bulging and housing association bosses get fat cat salaries.

Homes fit for heroes? Today`s heroes are the asset strippers.

How exactly that great legacy is being stripped away  made for a stormy meeting at Longtown-reported earlier on this blog- when the tenants of Riverside Housing Association  fiercely attacked  Riverside`s asset-stripping.

They also attacked  the  neglectful way this Liverpool property development organisation is caring for its former council houses and their tenants.

More questions followed that stormy meeting. First, questions to the man who organised the meeting, Mr Dean Butterworth, regional director of Riverside who had faced a barrage of criticism.

His questions came from the newly formed tenants` group, Longtown Action for Heat. It was a list of about a dozen questions concerning the dodgy Riverside boilers in about sixty homes  that have left their tenants freezing and fuming with no remedy in sight.

Mr Butterworth has promised answers to all the questions.

Second, questions to the man who chaired the  meeting, Councillor John Mallinson who represents Longtown on Carlisle City Council. He also faced  criticism at the meeting.

His questions came from Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation which is backing the tenants.A dozen questions  came in a letter and asked what help is forthcoming  for the freezing tenants from the two councils, Carlisle and Cumbria, and from the local councillors.

And  why the tenants had no one to turn to  two years ago when they first needed help.They were desperate for help.

And why the tenants, now coming up for their third winter without heat have still no one to turn to for help.

They have still no one to turn to for help.

Mr Mallinson has promised to address these issues.

Back to poppies and Armistice Day. That stormy meeting  was held in a building that is a legacy of the First World War, and was  built about the same time as council housing in Britain was getting underway. Longtown Memorial Hall was built in memory of the Longtown victims of that war .It is now a thriving community centre.

MR CAMERON, MR BUTTERWORTH AND A STORM

THE RIVERSIDE NIGHTMARE GOES ON AND ON…

It is the way THEY deal with US.  

The way OUR problems are dealt with by THEM.  

OUR leaders draw a line under OUR problems.  

David Cameron is now drawing a line under immigration before he loses more M.P.`s to UKIP and more seats in the Commons.

Dean Butterworth is at it here in Carlisle with an article in the weekly paper, the Cumberland News.  He says he is drawing a line in the sand under the problems he has inherited from his long-suffering tenants of Longtown.   

Mr Butterworth’s suffering tenants live in ice box homes because they cannot afford proper heating. He also has suffering leaseholders who live in utterly perplexed homes because of Riverside bills that they cannot afford and often cannot understand.    
 All of them need that line in the sand.

Suffering tenants and leaseholders were not the only problems Mr Butterworth inherited when he became Carlisle regional director of the giant Liverpool property development organisation Riverside Housing Association a year ago. 

Notably,  there was the problem caused by his predecessor, Mr Patrick Leonard.  Mr Leonard astounded Cumbria and the British social housing industry when he stood as Labour candidate in the election for Cumbria Police and Crime Commissioner and then said that he was able to combine his Riverside  job - now worth £85,000 a year plus a car - with the £65.000 a year police commissioner`s job.
Mr Leonard failed to become commissioner and did not continue for very long afterwards as Riverside’s Carlisle regional director. But Mr Leonard’s outrageous claim left behind a difficult legacy for his Liverpool bosses
Has Mr Butterworth drawn a line in the sand under that difficult legacy?

And for the distressed tenants and leaseholders?
 There has been criticism in the city council of Riverside’s bossy culture in dealing with these problems. There has been damning criticism by a county court judge about Riverside’s “absolute mess" in its failure to negotiate with two of its leaseholders who had problems.
 There was a storm of criticism of Riverside by tenants at last week’s public meeting in Longtown. Mr Butterworth looked far from comfortable facing the tenants! In the Cumberland News article Mr Butterworth says of the tenants: “We are not chaining any of them to their properties they are free to go and find alternative accommodation should they wish to do so”.  
His callous “you-are-free-to-go” ultimatum has caused another storm of criticism from tenants, who are again kitting themselves out with extra jumpers and sleeping bags.

The Longtown residents are on the brink of their third winter in ice box homes. Their questions are still unanswered about broken tenancy agreements, failure of a duty of care, no financial compensation for the sky-high energy bills and no financial compensation for their personal suffering.

Can it really be believed that Mr Butterworth still keeps his line in the sand?  
The answer is in a letter to the Cumberland News last week which so far has not been published, the letter is from Jimmy Robb, Chairman of the recently formed tenants group fighting for justice, Longtown Action for Heat.     

 The letter says: 

"I would like to respond, on behalf of the suffering tenants of Longtown, to Riverside's Divisional Director, Dean Butterworth's comments in the article featured on 10 October regarding the long-standing heating issue. When Mr. Butterworth assumed the post, he talked of how he wished to work with the tenants to bring an end to the massive increase in bills since Riverside installed heating systems in 2012. However his most recent comments indicate an altogether different solution, the essence being that if, we the tenants don’t like it we are free to leave. This seems to be a rather callous, unsympathetic approach that disregards the emotional investment tenants place in their home, and seems to contradict his previous comments and indeed the Tenancy Agreement which stipulates a Duty of Care… A duty TO care by landlords. It is also interesting to note that Mr. Butterworth is able to denounce the Avoca Report, despite commissioning it and agreeing to abide by its conclusions, dismissing it as "wrong" yet claimed to be "not technically minded" during the Riverside/BRE presentation on the 9th. His assumption that the Avoca Report is unsound - which seems to clash with his statement that, “ Avoca…have come back saying heating systems work fine and there has not been any significant increase in utility bills as a result." (Cumberland News Feb. 17th) In reality the Report is quite clear: that the energy-guzzling boilers are unsuitable and have plunged tenants into fuel poverty. Mr. Butterworth has now taken the advice of a BRE consultant that expresses the opinion that £10 per day is a reasonable cost to pay to heat a 2-bedroom flat and has now drawn a line under the issue. I only wish the tenants of Longtown paying £80 per week to heat their homes, or the tenants, who like myself simply can’t afford to and have no option but to freeze, or the two pensioners that suffered almost numerous breakdowns between them last winter could end this nightmare so easily and conclusively.” YOURS,  JIMMY ROBB OCTOBER 14 2014 THIS POST WAS FIRST PUBLISHED ON OCTOBER 22 AND LATER ACCIDENTALLY DELETED

A MOVEABLE FEAST IN THE PARK

It was a festival day at home  ...and a big day in the park. 

So let`s join them together and take the festival to the park and have a combined festival - park - big - day.

So thought mother of two, Sunjeela Zeba (right) who  lives in Blundell Road, Petteril Bank, Carlisle which is just  a stone’s throw away from Dale End Park where her children played. 

Sunjeela and her friends  prepared for the Muslim Eid  festival at home with lots of Bangladesh dishes which they had cooked.

Then they carried the dishes to the park where the big day was in full swing ...it was the opening of a  spanking-new park play area by Carlisle City Councillor Elsie Martlew. 

The picnic table in the new play area was brought into use and a table cloth carefully laid. Sunjeela served everyone the scruptious food she had prepared at home ...curry, rice, meat curry, sweet dishes and chicken  dishes...lovely...as this picture shows.

Sunjeela, who is 32, explained:”Dale End is a lovely park which my children enjoy every day. I thought it would be nice to share our Eid festival to show our appreciation of the park. I am pleased that everyone tucked in and enjoyed  the food”. 

Everyone certainly did enjoy  the food, said Jenny Cray of nearby Welsh Road who played a big part in sponsoring the new play area and organising  the park open day for the local community group, Carlisle South Community Association.

Jenny said.” This was lovely gesture by Sunjeela which everyone appreciated. Her feast of lovely food rounded off a perfect day”. 

Jenny(back to the camera) is pictured second from the left.

ANOTHER UKIP-STYLE CHALLENGE

RIVERSIDE PROMISES?

WE HAVE HEARD IT

ALL BEFORE

SAY TENANTS

Jimmy Robb...heard it all before

The UKIP bandwagon rolls on after the two by election shocks and the

new force that has emerged to challenge the existing British political parties.

Here in Cumbria, on the same day as the  polls in Clacton and  Heywood and Middleton, another new force  also emerged 

This new force also was prepared for a challenge.

The challenge was to the Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association, owner of 50,000 homes, and its local boss, Dean Butterworth. 

Mr Butterworth called a public meeting to patch up his organisation`s  shattered reputation over its dodgy boilers which were installed with solar heating in an estimated 60 homes in Longtown more than two years ago.

The new force is a tenants` group formed a few weeks  ago to fight for justice for the distressed tenants who cannot heat their homes  because of sky-high energy bills caused by the dodgy boilers.

The new force is called Longtown Action for Heat.

And it was  another sort of heat-  passionate verbal heat- that was generated at that meeting by the tenants` group`s chairman, Jimmy Robb and his tenants` group colleague, Tim Hall. Their verbal heat was a torrent of damning questions and comments for Dean Butterworth.

Promise after promise...Dean Butterworth

Earlier, the meeting  heard the findings of a new efficiency report  on the dodgy boilers, a report which Riverside  commissioned  in an attempt to draw a line under  the row.

But far from drawing a line, the meeting stoked up  more criticism of Riverside as speaker after speaker told
distressing stories of two winters spent huddled  in jumpers in unheated rooms and the dread of the coming third winter.

No one  it appeared had a good word for Riverside

Mr Butterworth, £85,000-a-year Carlisle regional director of  Riverside  made promise after promise to the 31  people present, most of them protesting
tenants.

After two hours of Butterworth promise-after-promise the verdict of most of the tenants appeared to be that all trust in Riverside had vanished.

Certainly trust had vanished for Jimmy and Tim.To the Butterworth promise-after-promise,  the two men  reflected on the frustration and anger of  the many months they had spent in unheated rooms in unheated homes.

Jimmy and Tim`s fight for justice from  Riverside had lasted two years  and had  got them nowhere.

Jimmy and Tim  told Mr Butterworth :”We have heard it all before.”

It is a comment that may strike a chord with other people dozens of miles away who also say they are angry and frustrated ...the protesting UKIP by election  voters of Clacton and Heywood and Middleton. 

Longtown Action for Heat is supported by Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation. Information about the Federation is available from 01228 522277  or  01228 532803.