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Do tenants pay twice?
• AS chairwoman of Holland Walk Area Panel I was shocked when I was sent details of a recent Islington Council meeting regarding its “concern” over a panel decision to spend £23,000 of estate security funding on youth projects, but giving youth services a year’s notice that this was the last time (MP slams ‘madness’ of tenants’ dilemma as clubs face the chop, December 28).
For as long as I can remember, area panels have raised concerns about the subsidy of youth services at the compromise of other security measures. The logic is simply that the council should be covering all youth services in the same way as it does services for every other age group.
Despite this, every year the funding is continually agreed. Why challenge the panel’s decision now, nine months later, when all this time could have been spent raising alternative funding?
The youth of our borough need an enormous amount of resources and attention and we all want the very best for them. The panel is simply asking the council to fund the services centrally from our council tax, which residents in social housing also pay but don’t seem to get the same benefits.
The decision is that of the panel and no one else. It’s noticeable that across the country the funding of services is gradually shifting away from one pot distributed among all to more direct funding for amenities.
The logic for funding youth projects from area housing panels’ security budgets could be: well, it’s your kids who are the vandals, so you pay to keep them occupied. In reality, youth services are open to everyone, no matter where they live, and vandals come from all walks of life and age groups. We should be encouraging integration, not postcode gangs or groups.
If all youth services were funded from one central pot, perhaps we could achieve greater integration, continuity and better youth provision? There are loads of broken intercoms, for a multitude of reasons, all over estates in Islington, allowing all sorts of people inside blocks of flats.
All these issues equally affect the quality of life and self-esteem of young people and this is actually what the budget is supposed to be spent on. Are we all keeping our council tax bills low at the expense of people in social housing by enabling services on estates to be paid out of rent and service charge money as segregated spaces?
There are numerous and worrying examples where this is becoming the norm, such as housing funding for the maintenance of access roads. The truth is that estate grounds are public in the same way that street properties are public. Does this mean tenants are paying for maintaining their own estates and then paying council tax on top?
It would be constructive if everyone got involved in debating how we want to move forward rather than what seems to be happening, which is that tenants’ and leaseholders’ concerns go unheard or unaddressed for another year. Can this be sensibly discussed in the interest of all the young people of this borough?
JUSTINE - GORDON SMITH
Chairwoman, Holland Walk Area Panel
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