Stop privatisation

[stompy]

urging all council tennants to vote 'no' to stock transfer
privatisation doesn't deliver- they're after profit- not your wellbeing!

As anyone who has recently undergone refurbishment knows, private firms don't deliver a good service- jobs that we were told would take 2 weeks are still not finished 3months later and everyone passes the buck onto everyone else.If council was allowed to use their own employees evrything could be organised and accounted for

Just think how much worse it will be when housing passes out of local control all together (and believe me that is effectively what will happen- I've seen the results of privatisation in Glasgow)

The Highlands really should join the majority of other councils and reject this privatisation. The more peole who make a stand the more likely it is that we can force the Westminister government to cough up the cash to the councils that they've promised to Scottish Homes quango.

I for one refuse to be blackmailed and I hope Highlanders have enough sense to see through the propaganda and vote no!

[percy toboggan]

The remaining tenanted houses on my esate down here were passed over to a housing association - formed by the council itself about five years ago.
Almost immediately about ten grand was spent on each house - which were only thirty years old - and they look even better now, inside and out. Wasted on about five per cent of tenants but the majority seem very happy. It's perked the area up a bit.

[cuddlepop]

Simplistically the theory is great. The council transfer all stock to a private association, the Scottish Exec give them loads of money and everybody is happy. As I understand it though a similar exercise was carried out with leisure facilities. Inverness Leisure (the Aquadome) is not a council owned facility, the company who operate it are owned by the council but the council has no control over it. The Charities Act obliges the company to act in the best interest of the company which of course may not be in the best interest of the council. It was set up with carefully selected directors (in much the same way as this new association, I believe) but over the years as people resign etc other replace them and the council lose control. As sure as a cat’s a hairy beast this will happen with the HHA

[frank ward]

Well said, stompy. The beat way to force this government to change its policy away from privatisation is to stop it in its tracks, as has happened in the the last three consecutive votes by Edinburgh, Scottish Borders, and Stirlingshire.

According to HAST, 110 areas have transferred, but 100 have voted no, and dozens more councils have rejected transfer as an option, including most of Scotland.
Most tranfers happened early on, and it was only when the truth started to emerge that tenants woke up to the dangers.

Midlothian is building 1000 new council houses, so Bill Fernie's claim that council house building is 'a thing of the past' will only be fact if we allow it to be.

The HAST website http://www.hast2006.org.uk/ is a good source of information and despite the pro-transfer lobby trying desperately to diss it I have not seen any wrong statistics on the site. It's a wonderful piece of anger, outrage and truth.

Puss

PS - The Highland Housing Association has declared no plans to build a SINGLE new house.

[Bill Fernie]

The Midlothian aim to build 1000 new council houses is fine but it may not stand up to much scrtuiny as way of solving the problem they face as do all other areas. The statment at http://www.midlothian.gov.uk//Article.aspx?TopicId=74&ArticleId=17548 says they are losing 300 houses a year from the Right To Buy. This means that if it takes 5 years to build the 1000 houses they promise they will have 500 less than when the building programme started.

Added to that unless they have found way round it the tenants in the new houses will have the right to buy them and in most areas it is the newest and best houses that tenants have exercised their right to buy. The council may apply for pressured area status and suspend the right to buy with permission from the Scottish Executive. I do not not know if they have applied for this but if someone has the time no doubt this information can be winkled out.

The Highland Housing Association may not yet have set out their plans for building new houses but don't you think that getting ready to assume control over the existing housing is big enough job to start with.

Meantime the Highland Council has begun to receive the £50 million promised if the council began the process to ask tenants to vote on the issue. woudl tenants have thanked the council for turning down this £50million to begin to be made available to build houses in the Highlands. This money is being paid at the rate of £10 million a year for five years.

Since this is in addition to the £166 million debt being written off is it not sensible to seriously look at this. If tenants do not want to transfer then the council will have to look at what happens next. But it will do so with the debt still in place and with a major part of council rents being used to pay that debt as before.

Hast 2006 are fighting to get tenants to say No but they will not be around to help after the vote nor do they say exactly how the council will be able to bring about a larger house building programme other than that everyone tenants, councillors and others should fight the Scottish Executive and the government to get the money passed to the council.

Hast 2006 does not offer much comfort on future rent levels but rather seems to be asking folk to risk everything on winning some sort of battle. Their route offers no guarantees because they cannot. All they offer is a fight to keep the housing in council hands. A Yes vote gets a guarantee on the rents for the next five years. What record does Hast 2006 have to make the claims it does. People may not always like what they hear from the council but it is usually reliable in what it says.

The vote is now ongoing and we need as many people to vote as possible to ensure we see exactly what people want one way or the other.

[stompy]

glad I'm not alone!!!
My cousin is an architect for a council that has knocked back ALL PFI / stock tranfer deals - I think its East Lothian. He loves working there as things get done!!! Groundbreaking modern 'green' primary shools etc are happening there. Meanwhile back in Wick it feels like everything is falling to bits around our lugs!!! Privatisation is not the way forward- this doesn't necessarily mean all business links are bad- it just means it must be accountable- East Lothian don't grant planning permission to e.g. Tescos etc without getting the company to invest in infrastructure, housing, transport etc......