STANELLA WAS GIVEN AWAY AS A BABY

  

Council house lovely had a mansion secret

A new book published at the weekend tells the story of  Stanella (pictured a strikingly-beautiful woman who was born to live in an historic Scottish mansion but was denied this wealthy lifestyle she should have had. Instead, she was  given away as a baby.Stanella`s Irish mother did not want her.

  

 But a loving working class couple took  the baby in and gave her a name. The baby from the mansion of 120 rooms grew up into a  woman who  found true happiness in the couple`s three - bedroom  council house in Ridgemount Road, Carlisle.

But Stanella knew there was something that was not quite right. In her twenties, the secret of her birth came out came out which made her desperate to meet her real mother . 

Stanella spent The rest of her life trying to meet her. And her real mother was equally as keen to know about the baby she had given birth to but had given away. But barriers were always put in the way.

Sadly, mother and daughter  never did meet again. Both died  without that much-longed-for meeting .

The book, “Lovely Stanella: My Quest For the Truth”, also tells the story of the Scottish mansion, Terregles House, near Dumfries,seat for centuries of the aristocratic Maxwell family and its links with Mary Queen of Scots.

It also tells the story of Stanella`s Irish family, the Clenaghans from Lisburn and their struggles as Catholics during the last century`s Irish troubles.

The Clenaghans overcame arson attacks, rioting and looting to emerge as highly successful and wealthy cattle dealers.The book was written by Stanella`s  loving husband, John Barker. It is published by P3 Publications, 3 Beaver Road, Carlisle at £12.

 

  Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is availableon 01228 522277

MANAGERS TO GO BACK TO COLLEGE

 

Gove`s new law to tame rogue housing

Congratulations to Housing Minister Michael Gove (pictured) for introducing a new law that will require managers and executives employed by social landlords to obtain professional qualifications. This is the biggest reform to professional standards in the social  housing sector’s history.

 The changes will mean about 25,000 housing staff going back to college, and will change the way staff are trained and recruited in the social housing sector.

Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation which publishes this blog has campaigned for nearly a quarter  of a century to get better professional standards in social housing,

particularly the Liverpool based giant organisation, Riverside Housing Association.

Better standards seemed to be the last thing Riverside has  sought to achieve over the years.  Complaints about these standards by tenants and by the federation achieved nothing because Riverside  had no care about such things. . Riverside is accountable only to itself

The  planned  law is primarily a response to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and concerns that the building was not adequately managed by its landlord, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea , and its management body, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation .. 

But then came the inquest into the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in a housing association home in Rochdale. The verdict  was that his death was caused by serious damp and mould in his home which went unaddressed for two years.

The verdict led to a significant hardening of the rhetoric from Michael Gove, the housing secretary towards rogue housing in the sector. 

This, of course, follows two years of revelations about poor repairs performance, and an increasingly active Housing Ombudsman publicising the failures it investigates.

  Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52

THE UNCARING WORLD OF AUTOMATIC MACHINES

 No charity

 in this big bank

account

Today`s callous disregard  for people by big business seems to be much worse than the uncaring  world of automatic machines that newspaper reader Ina Grassie oulines this week in the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald.

 Another  Herald reader says:”One of the high street banks recently sent me a form to complete saying they  had a string of questions needing answers about a charity account I help to run. It comprised several sheets and was a bit like an income tax form. It took nearly half a day to complete.

“More  than a month later they contacted me  again by letter saying they needed more information and would I ring them.

“Then came a bossy Big Brother bit.

 “Not only did they want me to ring them, they insisted on my ringing them within a week otherwise they would close the account..

“Charming, I thought.

“Naturally, I wanted to keep the account open so I wasted no time in trying to get in touch. Little did I  realise the  impossibility of getting in touch . I spent an hour on the phone but there was no reply.

“The following day I spent another hour on the phone and there was still no reply This went on for a week and while I can say that I have had dozens of recorded messages  from the bank  apologising  for what they called “delays in answering” I have still not had a  single reply to what I estmate  must have been something like seven hours on the phone.

“Meanwhile  my phone bill must have shot up to goodness knows  how much,  the bank account has been closed and I am furious.

“ Of course I have complained by letter and I shall contact  the bank ombudsman and possibly  put the story on Facebook.

“But who cares?

“I am sure the bank doesn`t.”

 Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 5222

 

 

RESEARCH BACKS HOUSING CAMPAIGNERS` CONCERNS

 Riverside

tenant concerns get short shrift

 New research backs up what  campaigning group Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation was up against in its long fight against the giant Riverside Housing Association and its continued failures.

 The research shows that overall tenant satisfaction has dropped by five percentage points to 79% since 2020 in an analysis of sector’s performance against new tenant satisfaction measures.

The  research is by data firm Housemark. It shows for the first time how landlords are performing against the Regulator of Social Housing’s (RSH) new tenant satisfaction measures (TSMs). 

Data firm HouseMark...a trade stand.

 The research also found that only 56% of tenants are satisfied with their landlord’s complaint-handling.

The data, which involves more than 100 landlords, comes ahead of the official launch of TSMs in April.

Housemark’s report  said that for the past 12 years, the English social housing sector has seen “little scrutiny” of the services it provides residents since the closure of the Tenant Services Authority, a government body that was scrapped in 2010 in the so-called ‘bonfire of the quangos’.

The Grenfell Tower disaster, which claimed the lives of 72 people in June 2017, was the catalyst for a major overhaul of regulation of the sector.

The resulting Social Housing Regulation Bill, due to receive royal assent this year, brings in a host of changes to the law, including a beefed up Housing Ombudsman and RSH

Many years prior to the Grenfell disaster, the   campaigning group Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation had been attacking  Liverpool-based Riverside as a grossly-inefficient organisation which is accountable  to no one but itsself.

"Tenant concerns get short shrift from Riverside", said a federation spokesman. 

"What HouseMark has unearthed is not very different to what we have been saying for two decades", the spokesman added

    Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 5222

 

CONSPIRCY OF SILENCE BY RISHY AND KIER

 

Home truths from The Times

newspaper

Home ownership is now out of the reach of too many Britons. It is well past time for Rishi Sunak and Sir Kier Starmer to get serious about housebuilding”, says The Times newspaper in an editorial this week.

The editorial goes on “Home ownership was once a  rite of passage for Britain`s aspirational young. It should be  again.

 “Even the first government of Ramsay MacDonald (pictured) managed in its ten unremarkable months in office to set in train a major programme    of housebuilding.

“Nearly a century on voters are instead confronted with a conspiracy of silence by the prime minister and his likely successor.

“They will reward the man to tackle vested interests and get Britain building again”

   Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 5222