QUESTIONS FOR THE `BLIND EYE` COUNCIL

`Shop the park

vandals and shop

 Riverside too!`    

          Malcolm Craik

A leading Carlisle councillor`s appeal  for the public to shop the yobs who are vandalising  the city parks is welcomed by  community activist, Malcolm Craik.

But there is also vandalism on a much larger scale going on in the city and the council  is turning a blind eye to it, Mr Craik claims in a letter to the editor.

This vandalism, alleges Mr Craik has been done to a village green by the city`s biggest landlord, Riverside Housing Association. Like the park vandals, Riverside also should be shopped and that should be done by the city council, he says.

The letter to the editor has been submitted to the Cumberland News, Carlisle.

Mr Craik is a former member of the governing board of the Riverside company. Carlisle Housing Association. He now is very active  with Carlisle Leaseholder Action Group  and Cumbria Riverside Action Group in long-standing disputes with Riverside.

 This is his letter:

Elsie Martlew is to be congratulated for her stance on the vandals who drove across the grass at Rickerby Park and Richmond Green. 

She urges members of the public to shop these park yobs and pledges a £200 reward for information leading to a successful prosecution of the offender or offenders.

While I have no information on these most recent park related outrages I would like to shop  Riverside Carlisle housing association  to Elsie for creating a memorial garden at Seatollor Close in Morton last year on land which has been designated as a village green and as such is protected from such vandalism by an act of parliament.

Planting trees there, I understand, contravenes the Open Spaces Act 1906. Remarkably the city council took no action against Riverside Carlisle  over this blatant disregard for the law which leads me to wonder if councillors were aware of it.

In another case involving Riverside Carlisle  leaseholders and tenants have been forced to accept new front doors that are narrower than those they replace.

These doors appear to contravene building regulations because of their narrowness and because of the need for front doors to provide disability access now and in the future for residents.

Leaseholders have raised this issue with the council whose officers tell us that Riverside Carlisle  doesn’t need to get building consent from the council and they have refused to force the landlord to comply with the regulations even though they have a statutory duty to ensure compliance throughout the authority’s area of governance.

Perhaps Elsie will want to look into the reasons why the city council seems so unwilling to prosecute the Riverside organisation whenever it breaches law or regulation.

 It is especially important that the people of Carlisle observe that everyone in the city, especially electorally unaccountable housing associations, are subject to the rule of law.

Housing will almost certainly be a major issue on the doorstep during the coming election; let’s hope our elected representatives can provide some plausible answers- 

Malcolm Craik M.A., Carlisle Leaseholder Action Group, St Martin` s Place, Brampton.