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Massive 'right-to-buy' bills come home
A PROTEST is planned for Monday when angry homeowners in Paddington will demonstrate against massive leaseholders’ bills.
The anger stems from charges of up to £60,000 to hundreds of leaseholders for planned major works to the Warwick and Brindley estates.
The occupants of the six tower blocks, known as the Little Venice tower blocks, are mostly elderly and on low incomes.
Disabled Brian Pottle said: “There is something like 850 to 900 leaseholders. We are meeting to protest at the CityWest Homes leaseholders’ fair in Bayswater on Monday from 1pm.”
Karen Buck, Labour MP for Regent’s Park and Kensington North, said she was in “constant dialogue” with CityWest Homes about the plans. She said she was campaigning to make sure low-income families living in the six tower blocks would be given extra time to cope with the costs.
She said: “Many of these low-income leaseholders face repayments that are more than their earnings. That is worrying.”
“Ms Buck added: “This is a high priority to me and something that is close to my heart. We are talking about pensioners, nurses, bus drivers and key workers.
“They are people that were encouraged into home ownership. We don’t want people moving out of Westminster.
“My main concern is that there have been concerns with major works before. All that we can do is lobby CityWest Homes to make sure that the charges are for things that have have actually been done.”
The majority of the flats in the estates were bought under the right-to-buy scheme.
And Ms Buck said it was likely the works to the estates were delayed in the aftermath of the Shirley Porter ‘Homes for Votes’ scandal.
She said: “We are now seeing a programme of major works that were put on hold from the late 1980s and early 1990s.
A lot of the works were delayed so as not to scare new homeowners.”
She said occupants were seeking legal advice on that point.
The CityWest Homes leaseholders’ fair runs from 1-8pm at the Porchester Hall, Porchester Road in Bayswater.
Randall Bevis, CityWest’s leaseholder services manager, said: “This is an invaluable chance to ask questions about anything and everything – I’d encourage all our leaseholders to come along.” |
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