Highland Council to lose £MILLIONS with HST

[frank ward]

Hello Again!
Long Time No See.

May I bring your attention to some startling news.
The Highland Council is presenting Houising Stock Transfer [HST] as a painless and beneficial exercise.

They are telling porkies. You will see NOT ONE WORD printed by the Council highlighting the downsides to HST. The prospects of higher rents and charges are not mentioned.

F'rinstance, HST might cost every Highland council tax payer £120

Plus - every man, woman and child in Scotland will lose £40.

Can't believe this?

For details and more shocks visit this site [below] and click on the link in the left column.

http://www.ssp-highlandsandislands.org

Frank Ward

[dozy]

If Pentland get their hands on them , pity help you ...Why not give the houses to the tennents and the tax payer can hold on to the sweeter / backhander that the new landlord would get.............

[frank ward]

dozy is right. The council is far from perfect, but at least you can put pressure on your councillor. This will vanish if there's a Yes vote for transfer.

ALL the statistics show that Local Authorities build, manage, maintain and repair houses at less cost than Housing Associations.

To date, our gullible councillors have swallowed all the nonsense told them by senior officials.

The Executive is willing to pay £190 million to benefit a private company, but says it won't make anything available for councils who decide to retain their housing stock.

Yet Dundee, Edinburgh and Aberdeen have all rejected HST and investment has continued. Midlothian last month started on a programme to build 1000 council houses for rent - and at some of the lowest rents in the country.

If Highland Housing Association takes over - God Forbid - only 60% of the houses they build [on land obtained for peanuts] will be for rent - the other 40% will be for sale.

[frank ward]

For information:
The latest statistics published by the Scottish Executive [2004/5 Digest] show Housing Associations in Scotland charge rents on average £6.22 per week higher than local authorities.

[obiron]

makes me glad we bought our house.

[dunderheed]

so if the coucil tax is raised by £120 per household , surely homeowners should be given some sort of rebate as we are outwith the coucil house stock?

[frank ward]

sorry, dunderheed, but although the housing debt is financed comfortably and entirely through rents, if the transfer goes through there will be no more rental income. Thus the £12.5 million loss will fall on to ALL council tax payers.

It is probable that money will 'be found' to meet much of this loss, or it will be spread over several years, or a new loan may be taken out to cover the loss, etc etc

which begs other questions....

The irony is that not a single tenant will have any long-term benefit and not a penny off the rent.
Every man, woman and child in Scotland will lose about £40 when the Scottish Executive repays £190 million to the UK treasury.