West End letters: Cllr Philippa Roe | Labour ward residents

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 4 September 2009

Our plans will benefit Labour ward residents

COUNCILLOR Paul Dimoldenberg’s outrageous, groundless, and deeply irresponsible claims show that he is increasingly out of touch with reality (So-called ‘regeneration’ a threat to council tenants, August 28).
The notion that housing plans that we are working up with “evil” is not only bizarre but totally inaccurate. Our plans will in fact benefit the very people that Labour ward councillors represent in the city.
His claims that we plan to “knock down”’ parts of our housing estates to reduce the number of council tenants are simply wrong and making these allegations is not only irresponsible but, worse still, causes unnecessary worry to many residents.
Indeed, his needless scaremongering is doing nothing to improve social housing and only detracts from all the good work that is being done by both by council and CityWest Homes officers on the ground, together with residents to improve their communities.
To score cheap political points he revels in making references to what happened nearly a quarter of a century ago. But as he knows full well, since then Westminster Council’s housing administration has moved on immensely.
Cllr Dimoldenberg apparently hasn’t and repeatedly focuses on events that have no bearing on housing policy today.
In Church Street, there is a genuine sense of community and a real pride in the neighbourhood but we know there is more to be done to help lift this area of out of its current levels of deprivation.
Cllr Dimoldenberg is totally wrong when he claims families living in this area, many of them in overcrowded conditions, will lose out when what we want to do is to bring this existing housing stock into the 21st century.
We certainly are not trying to “get away” with anything as he claims. We have been open and transparent and from the beginning have involved residents from each of these different areas. Any residents who are not yet involved but want to have their say are very welcome.
I am working to ensure every project is of particular benefit to its local community and we have already started to work with residents to start developing plans for these estates.
We are setting up steering committees for each of the estates on which we will have local residents and ward councillors.
We have already started consulting residents on our plans to build almost 500 new homes and comprehensive consultation is planned at each location over the coming months.
This is a huge programme of change, but a programme that will help deliver more and better quality housing making a real difference to the lives of residents in generations to come.
CLLR Philippa Roe
Cabinet Member for Housing

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment: