LABOUR PLAN TO` NATIONALISE `HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS

Bossyboots Riverside

`will  get its 
comeuppance`

 
Britain`s bossy housing associations will be brought into line if Labour wins the next election. This bossiness and  its twin abuse, gross inefficiency will be ended as housing associations are taken over and “nationalised.”

A motion agreed at  this week`s Labour  conference at Brighton  commits the party  to giving local councils the powers and resources to take housing associations under direct council control.

The news will be welcome  by many tenants of  the Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association, one of the bossiest and most inefficient  in the country- demonstrated many times in  the 18 years it has run Carlisle` 6,000 former council houses and flats.

The news is also welcomed  by Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation which during those 18 years has campaigned  vigorously against Riverside`s abuses. The Federation wants Riverside to be held to account by its tenants and  the housing association regulator.

GARETH ELLIS...tenants abandoned

But  Riverside is accountable to no one-   no one but itself.

The story of much of that Federation campaigning is told in the  many posts on this blog which  the Federation publishes.

A Federation spokesman said today: We have tried over the years to get MPs, local authorities and others  to hold Riverside to account. But we have found that to be an impossible task because it seems that no one  person or organisation has the power to do that.”

News that local authorities may take over housing associations will also be welcome by the Carlisle City Council which over the years has had to deal with hundreds of complaints about Riverside  but has been frustrated in being unable to help.

RUTH ALCROFT..."build council houses."

 Earlier this year, Riverside was accused of abandoning  its 6,000 Carlisle tenants and leaseholders through the closure  of its city offices which are now on the market to let.

County and city councillor Gareth Ellis branded the  associaton an “ absentee landlord” and declared the closure to be” a sad deterioration for residents.”

Earlier this month the city council was urged to go it alone and start building its own homes in an opposition motion by  Labour councillor Ruth Alcroft. The motion was defeated but Councillor Alcroft said today:"The fight goes on"    
  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227