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An urgency in the fight to secure decent homes
• EARLIER this month ex-mayor Ken Livingstone made a bold pledge to supply the investment to refurbish our homes and stop the sell-offs at auction to developers.
Now the mayoral election is over, and we have a new mayor, it is crucial that this dialogue is developed further, especially as the new Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and we quote from his website, “has begun his mayoralty in a spirit of openness and co-operation by convening a meeting with London’s borough councils to develop new ways of working together”.
We understand Councillor Keith Moffitt, leader of Camden Council, attended the function last Friday.
Alan Walters call in last week’s New Journal (We need joint approach to Johnson over housing, May 8) for a joint approach to the new mayor asking him to continue this discussion and fund the improvements we need to our homes is a good way forward and is a move which should be genuinely supported by Camden Council and councillors from all political parties – it certainly makes sense!
The association has been informed in writing that Camden Council intends to “aggressively” pursue any avenues for decent homes funding and this position appears to be supported, at least in principle, by Camden’s executive member for housing.
In December 2007 the association appealed to both Camden Council and Camden’s executive that there should be no sale of empty Camden homes and the arguments put forward to support this position were defended on the strongest moral and social grounds, but to no avail.
Councillor Chris Naylor now informs your readers that it looks as though Camden has reached its desired target by selling only 24 empty units rather than the 50 originally authorised (We shall be pressing for decent homes funding, May 1).
It would also appear that the situation is to be reviewed shortly, certainly before Camden pushes ahead once more and sells up to 500 properties in order to reach their overall target funding.
Can we suggest that any public meeting with the new mayor takes place as soon as possible, certainly before the outcome of any review is decided on by Camden Council, in the hope that this shameful situation can be brought to an end as quickly as possible!
We also call on all interested tenants’ groups and individuals to support that this public meeting be called in Camden as soon as possible!
Mike Cookson Taylor
Secretary, Camden Association of Street Properties
Take care of caretakers
• I WAS amazed to read the article (Estate caretakers could be scrapped to save cash, May 1), by Tom Foot.
Liberal Democrat housing councillor Chris Naylor said: “The government has reduced our housing subsidy by £8 million”, and the council estimates that “partial outsourcing could save them £500,000 to £1 million each year”.
Privatising the service or replacing caretakers with cleaners in my opinion would be the worst possible move.
We read about the “gang warfare”, we hear about the youth neglect.
Yet Chris Naylor talks about “how best to balance our books”.
Mayor Boris Johnson has declared radical change and to stop the flow of violence. This will begin at grass roots and the grass roots are the estates.
In my day as a child and teenager, the caretakers were a deterrent, if graffiti was on the walls – a rare occurrence – it would be removed immediately.
There were no groups of teenagers “hanging around late at night”.
The majority of estates had youth clubs, many held in the local church halls.
All the tenants knew the caretakers and vice-versa.
The caretakers were a bridge to the council.
If tenants’ children were reprimanded more than a few times reports were given to the appropriate person at the council, letters would be written; there was none of this business to let the individual tenants complain themselves.
It was a far tighter-run ship and more organised. There was no passing the buck.
Bringing in cleaning contractors is fatal, completely impersonal, going in the opposite direction that we should be. If we’re talking about care and not about saving money by demolishing a very important service in the workforce, the residential caretakers should be a top priority to retain.
Caretakers play a very important role. They are equally as important to the smooth-running of an estate as the people in the offices of the council.
The caretakers live among the tenants.
Think again Cllr Naylor and colleagues. Let’s have an open forum about this, well- advertised, and inviting all tenants of estates to attend.
Carolyn Parsons
NW6
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