Scottish Monitoring Group on Housing and Homelessness
... Watching the Executives
Link to programme and reports from our successful 2005 conference -
Programme and speakers
Comment
Tenants turn down stock transfer
Tenants in Renfrewshire have narrowly rejected stock transfer, as have tenants in Stirling and Edinburgh.
Losing one ballot might have been understandable, but three looks like carelessness. It’s the result of treating people as if they were stupid.
The Scottish Executive said small, community based housing associations were a good thing. Ministers said they would write off hundreds of millions of pounds in council debts if tenants voted to transfer to “community control”.
But community control turned out to be the transplanting of entire housing departments into the so called “voluntary” sector. GHA, with 73,000 tenants, dwarfs the typical Scottish housing association which has 2,000 or fewer homes in management.
GHA’s behaviour and the bad press it has attracted has made stock transfer much more difficult for any council to achieve. And the more desirable and practical option of small scale stock transfers to new or existing housing associations has been expressly discouraged by Scottish Executive rules.
Unfortunately one practical effect of No votes will be that councils demolish large numbers of houses which do not meet the new Scottish Housing Quality Standard. They will not be able to afford to upgrade them without massive rent increases, so demolition becomes attractive.
This is already happening in Dundee, where literally hundreds of good quality flats in relatively attractive multi storey blocks are being deliberately emptied by the City Council. Meanwhile, new lets are as rare as hens’ teeth. In one area of central Edinburgh, 400 applicants chase every council flat.
The Scottish Executive’s housing policy is unravelling. If the aim is to provide good quality, affordable homes for all the people who need them, it’s not working. Time for a rethink, we say.
19 October 2006
