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.