AFTER SHAKE UP USE THIS SURPLUS SPACE

Refugee plan for council offices

Just how many Cumbria people support the local government shake up that has finally  been given the go ahead.

Many  of us agree with  County Councillor Lord Liddle (pictured) that two unnatural communities have been created  by the way that  Cumbria has been  split into two unitary authorities. The proposed split is unsustainable, he told the House of Lords.

 

Can the split be made palatable to Lord Liddle and other critics, at least for the time being? One  idea that would meet everyone`s approval would be  for the two authorities to reach out to help  Ukraine and  offer  surplus accommodation to it

Surplus accommodation is surely now available all over the county following the big reduction  of the present six local authorities into two.

A good example is Carlisle with its massive Civic Centre district council headquarters much of which was unused and surplus  prior to the shake up. Possibly by  now that surplus will have been doubled.

It must be that the same could be said about  other district council headquarters at Penrith, Workington, Kendal and Barrow.

Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

NONE SO DEAF...

 

 

Riverside`s runaround and doing   right thing

 A Carlilse councillor who made  a phone call to Riverside Housing Association said  the runaround he got from that Liverpool organisation reminded him of the phrase “none so deaf as those who will not  hear.

 The councillor said he made the call on behalf of a constituent and was initially forced to spend three quarters of an hour waiting on the phone in a queueing system.

 Then he got through to a call centre in Liverpool. The  person there didn`t understand what was needed.

 The councillor`s story is typical  of hundreds of other abortive approaches made to Riverside every day by its tenants and councillors and others.

 “Riverside just  don`t want ro know about their tenants` problems and seem to put up every barrier possible in the way,” the councillor said.

 In the  20 years since Riverside took over  the 6,000  Carlisle council houses the city Tenants` and Residents`Federation has helped dozens of Riverside tenants complaining about this sort of runaround.

 Experience like this has led to the conclusion that Riverside is accountable to no one but itself.

This week Gavin Smart(below), chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing urged housing associations to “do the right thing”

 

 He said in an article in the social housing magazine Inside Housing:“That idea of doing the right thing should shape how we respond to the Social Housing White Paper and be at the core of the relationship between landlord and tenant.

“Too often when tenants feel they have been failed by their landlords, they also feel they have been ignored or are not respected, that their landlord is unaccountable or opaque in its decision-making.

“Whether this is the perception or the reality is almost incidental. The very fact that this is a view held by a proportion of people we exist to work with should act as a driver for improvement, a desire to strive to be better”.

 Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227