HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS ARE "NOT ACCOUNTABLE"

Ducking and diving

by the Riverside

It is good  news that at last our  housing associations are being held to account and will begin to properly face up to and address tenants` complaints.

 For far too long these complaints have been deliberately ignored.Housing Associations have have  done nothing but duck and dive.

It is no surprise that the Housing Ombudsman, Richard Blakeway, (pictured) this week had this to say about our associations`  deliberate  scheming  in order to evade their responsibilities:

 “We  see cases where residents have used the courts or the media when they have an unresolved issue with their landlord rather than the complaints process. And cases failing to reach us where we could potentially do something to genuinely assist the resident with their situation.

“ Raising awareness and widening access to the complaints process is therefore essential.”

He added: “The absence of complaints to a landlord or among a particular group may signal access issues, particularly where other indicators suggest there would be complaints”

 

Carlisle Tenants ` and Residents Federation which publishes this blog has had many years` experience of helping tenants and leaseholders who are victims of the ducking and diving antics of the mighty Riverside Housing Association of Liverpool.

 Riverside`s 50,000 tenants and leaseholders have been really up against if they had a  problem involving  their landlord.The federation found that Riverside officials handling the  complaints are very skilled at failing to respond properly and  then if necessary passing the buck.

And the  official Riverside complaints procedure is a series of   endless barriers which take endless time and endless patience to overcome

As the Federation has frequently  asserted: “Riverside is a law to itself”.

Hopefully, the Ombudsman  may have the answer to this appalling catalogue of failure.
of the post-Grenfell Social Housing White Paper.

He is   coming up with ways to improve the accessibility of  the Ombudsman complaints system as part of a new project being launched this week.

Applications are now invited for membership of an Ombudsman expert group that will provide specialist insight and expertise.  The ombudsman is specifically looking for volunteers who have knowledge and experience of accessibility and inclusion issues.

This includes experience of working with those who face barriers accessing services relevant to complaints and in improving accessibility to complaint services in social housing or other sectors.

It is expected that the group will be made up of around roughly six members. The role is unpaid and will be for one year, with the group meeting four times across the year.

Separate to all this,the Housing Ombudsman service is currently undergoing a major overhaul following the publishing of the post-Grenfell Social Housing White  Paper.

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

 

CENTREPOINT MODULAR HOUSES COULD BE THE ANSWER

`Job and home` plan 

for Lakes  clearances

The Sunday Times has devoted three separate articles  to what it called "the countryside housing crisis”At the same time the national housing charity Centrepoint is  pushing forward  with a plan  to tackle a related housing  crisis from a different angle..

The Sunday Times is concerned that in places like the Lake District, local people and key workers are being priced out of the market by the national demand for second home bolt holes,what MP Tim Farron(Westmorlnd and Lonsdale),pictured, calls “the Lakeland Clearances”.

 

  Centrepoint is concerned about young people who are ready to move on but cannot afford to do so.

The Sunday Times says many MPs are pushing for restrictions  on second home owners and Mr Farron has launched a petition for a change in the planning law. “We can no longer ignore the countryside housing crisis,” says the newspaper.

Centrepoint has a slogan:”A job and a home for homeless young people”. The charity has launched the biggest capital investment plan in it 50-year history: to deliver 300 new modular homes, each costing £50,000, to help young people into affordable accommodation, training and employment. No tenant will pay more than a third of his income in rent.

The second home problem has plagued the Lake District for well over half a century despite the best best efforts of local authorities and others. The problem seems to get worse by the day…  “ and if we don`t step in we will see entire populations move out,” says Mr Farron.”

 It seems that some new thinking is badly needed about the problem.Centrepoints`s “A  Job and a  Home” might well be that new thinking.

The scheme seems not expensive.It  could easily be adapted for places in Cumbria to give local young people the break they need to live and work in the place where they were born.

Hopefully,”A Job and a Home” could put an end to the clearances.

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

 

 

 

 

GIGANTIC KILLING OFF AND SHUFFLING

 

 Councils

beat mayors

every time 

 Boris Johnson last week pledged to create directly elected mayors for each individual county. How will this will apply to Cumbria and which councils will survive in the coming local government re-organisation.?

 

For an answer, perhaps it is useful to reflect on Prime Minister Edward Heath`s disastrous local government re-organisation of 1974 which started it all by igniting many big- is- best changes that still have echoes today.

These changes included killing off the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland and killing off hundreds of small town and rural councils.

These included two Penrith councils, two Carlisle councils and councils in Alston, North Westmorland, Keswick and South Westmorland.

The local government re-organisation was indeed a gigantic killing off and shuffling around, concentrating more and more power in Westminster aimed primarily to prepare Britain for the coming great European adventure which until recently dominated all our lives.

As I recall, many of the newly-created district councils were initially not given names but instead were given European numbers to link in with similar numbers and councils across Europe. Happily that never happened.

Today, 40 odd years later, Mr Johnson is trying hard to turn the clock back and to return some of that power to local communities through directly elected mayors based in major towns and cities.

Sadly, transparency and closeness to communities achieved by the hundreds of now abolished small town councils is no longer there.

Elected mayors, despite all Boris Johnson`s spin they are now attracting will never achieve the transparency and closeness of that sort.

PICTURED: London Mayor Sadiq Khan

 

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

 

 

WANTED: 68 CHEFS FOR THE LAKES

Local people vanish and tourists go hungry

Newspaper columnist Ross Brewster, the Sunday Times and MP Tim Farron last weekend painted grim pictures of the Lake District as it is now, after Brexit and Covid have done their worst.

Ross Brewster is nostalgic for Lakeland village fetes, for May Days, and carnivals of fifty years ago which all, sadly, have vanished from the calendar because the local people who organised them have vanished too. 

On a similar theme, the Sunday Times devoted nearly half a page to details of another vanished Lakes group: the workers who staffed the many restaurants and cafes.

“Wanted 68 chefs for the Lakes . The tourists are going hungry” said the Sunday Times headline.

Local MP Tim Farron (Westmorland and North Lonsdale) is concerned about both vanished groups.

He talks darkly about about Lakeland Clearance. Surely not clearances as devastating as the the Highland Clearances of two hundred years ago?

Possibly he has table clearances in mind- the sort of cups-and- saucers` clearances performed by waiters a hundred times a day.

Mr Farron is campaigning for a change in the planning laws to keep the local people in place locally.

And for hungry tourists, he wants a post Brexit relaxation of visa rules to allow EU citizens to return to Britain and fill the employment gaps.

Sadly, there are fewer and fewer of the these employment gaps.

Clearances of whatever kind have triumphed.

Restaurants are no more.

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

 

MARKET JOINS FORCES WITH STREET COBBLES` REPAIRS

 The local touch wins praise for tiny Alston

       

The tiny Cumbria  town of Alston with a population of about 1,100, has put has put its big city neighbour Carlisle to shame in organising an outdoor market. Many people agree that David won by a mile in this David versus Golliath contest.

Alston won because it relied on the people of the town. Carlisle, about 100 times the size with a population of 108,000 relied on outsiders and lots  of government cash.

 The market was a first for Alston with more  markets promised in the next few  months  as the town combines its entertaining street markets with town improvement in an unique way through re-instatement of its street cobbles.

The similar first weekend market 28 miles away in Carlisle had lots of food stalls , drinks` stalls, garden stalls and continuous highly organsed mass entertainment. It was called the Hawker Festival.

The city council organised the festival and backed it. And the government backed it with thousands of pounds from its national Welcome Back Fund.

With all that cash backing, how could  the Hawker Festival be anything but a success?

 It attracted hundreds of people and the stallholders seemed to make thousands of pounds .

But sadly, it also attacted a lot of criticism.

Critics said  the  stallholders came from miles away and there  wasn`t a local stallholder  in sight. Publicans said they had been deserted by their customers who had preferred  to drink at the Hawker Festival.

And critical politicians pointed out that all the thousands of pounds spent at the market had not stayed in Carlisle to benefit the city but had been moved away by the stall holders.

 Could any of the Carlisle critcisms be made about Alston`s street market?.The Alston stallholders were local, the Alston pubs boomed and Alston money stayed in  Alston.

The town claims to be the highest market town in England.

The quality of  Alston markets is  high too.

On this showing, that quality is also the highest in England

 PICTURED: ALSTON`S COBBLED MAIN STREET WITH, RIGHT. OLD-STYLE COVERED MARKET

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