YES, YET ANOTHER VERSION OF PLANNED HOUSING MERGER

Ex-chairman Waite and secrecy allegations

The mystery deepens as a third version emerges of the planned Cumbria merger of two housing associations - Impact and  Riverside. Version Number Three comes from Adrian Waite, a former chairman of Impact and now a leading management consultant.

Mr Waite talks darkly of secrecy and makes an accusation of withholding information from the public.

Accusations like this are nothing new to  those who for years have campaigned against Liverpool-based Riverside, notorious for its pronouncements which  make maximum  use of spin, gobledygook and obfuscation.

Riverside  has 50,000 homes  nationwide, 6,000 of them in Carlisle.Workington-based Impact has 2,700   homes.

Ex-chairman and shareholder Adrian Waite

Mr Waite`s version  follows an ever-so-friendly-cosy- get-together-version in the Carlisle newspaper, the News and Star and a version in the national  social housing magazine Inside Housing which pulled no punches in harsh criticism of Impact saying it was downgraded by the social housing regulator(the Homes and Communities Agency) for both its governance and  financial viability.

Mr Waite`s secrecy accusations are directed at Impact and the Homes and Communities Agency.

Mr Waite is managing director of AWICS, a management and training company based at Appleby specialising in giving support to local government and housing.

This is what he says in his web site about the planned merger:

“It appears to me that whole process from the In-Depth Assessment to the proposed Merger has been shrouded in secrecy and neither Impact Housing Association nor the Homes & Communities Agency (now rebranded as Homes England) appear willing to provide much information to the public, the tenants or even Impact Housing Association’s shareholding members (of whom I am one)”

  

Mr Waite goes on:

“I have therefore carried out my own investigation during which I have spoken with current and previous board members, senior staff, staff of Homes England and others in the community. Some conversations have been ‘on the record’ while others have been ‘off the record’. What I have discovered is very interesting, not only from the point of view of people who are concerned about the future of Impact Housing Association and the communities that it serves, but also for anyone who is concerned about the governance, viability and regulation of Housing.”

Readers of this blog who wish to read a fuller version of what Mr Waite has to say should google AWICS.

Readers of the News and Star will have to be content with the ever-so-cosy-version of the planned merger. A letter to the editor of the News and Star dated January 22, and copied on the same day on an earlier post of this blog  drawing attention to the different versions of the planned merger, has yet to be published.     


Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277 or 01228 532803