Lambeth Council tenant? Had your ALMO vote paper yet?
- Thread starter ViolentPanda
- Start date
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
marty21 said:
It's been outsourced for sometime now. The original winning bid came from ServiceTeam. They've been replaced by Connaught.
marty21 said:
just an update on this.
We were discussing the govt announcements of all the new homes today @ work and wondering if this would come to pass.
One of my colleagues met with some of the Housing Ministers advisers last week and the only mention of borrowing in the context of non almo local authority housing new builds was 'thou shalt not'
William of Walworth said:
this was in the daily mirror of 2nd of april and has been mentioned in the indy.it would appear that the guardian may have been a bit slow of the mark....
no mention of ALMOs. it's been suggested quite seriously that only where they are ALMOs (arm length management organisations) would these new fangled council housing be built. but we'll resist that. every council should be able to build new housing where possible, maintain its current stock which is not as bad as they want you to believe, in order to make you hate council housing, and buy back council housing lost to leaseholders
2 days ago, I was at the national conference of DCH. there were several MPs including one libdem. all of them expressed support for the idea but they all said "the devil is in the details", in other words, a polite way to say, we don't trust, Mr Brown, and personally I don't either.
Fourth Option Now!!! 
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
guinnessdrinker said:
I dont see Brown putting money into Council Housing as Direct Investment.Though talking to a New Labour type yesterday seems to me that loyalty to Blair as evaropated overnight.Brown is under a lot of pressure to deliver something to ordinary labour party voters-rather than the mythical "aspirational" wannabe homeowner.
Also its depressing but those on the property ladder are doing well at the moment and dont give a fuck about Council tenants.Brown doesnt want to lose the votes of them.So far Brown has recycled Prescotts policies.I think he fudge the issue.
Gramsci said:
good point.
marty21 said:
That makes it all the more necessary for DCH people to get their message out. Has there been any sign of their campaign around the Lambeth estates yet?
It was thanks to their hard work (to which I contributed, a bit) and that of Piers Corbyn's independent lot, that the Aylesbury Estate over in Southwark voted no to a stock transfer about 4 or 5 (?) years ago.
More recently superseded by a wholesale demolition/replacement plan for that estate. Southwark and various private consortia now have a big 'regeneration plan' for that estate, one of the biggest in Europe -- involving lots of profitable private housing on the sunnier side of the buildings, overlooking Burgess Park. The social element of the new housing will after all, despite the old ballot, be under a HA/Almo or something -- but legally a stock transfer ballot was not required for the new developments.
Point relevant to Lambeth being that campaigning, while not always succesful, is important -- otherwise the risk is that much better funded pro-transfer 'campaigns' steamroller their way through on a tide of glossy leaflets, even more easily ....
But council tenants tend to be naturally sceptical about these 'choice agenda'** campaigns I think, and quite rightly so.
**any 'choice' whatsoever you like -- so long as your choice isn't to remain as a tenant of the evil wicked public sector council and have your homes properly upgraded by proper direct Council investment! If you want that, then you can fuckin whistle for your investment -- some would call it blackmal, I couldn't possibly comment ....
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
editor said:
Can you check with any of your neighbours whether they've had their papers? Not that I'm suspicious that Lambeth would have deliberately left out the details of a whole block when they sent all the relevant info to the Electoral Reform Society (who were the people who sent the voting papers out), oh no.
I'd get on to your housing office ASAP though, because I'm pretty damn sure that next friday (27th) is the voting deadline.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Most of the estates on Tulse HIll, as far as I can make out, have been leafleted, nice, simple leaflets not trying to score any political points, just making plain that the "promised" money is in fact contingent on Lambeth performing better, and isn't a "sure thing".William of Walworth said:
gaijingirl
Well-Known Member
The Tulse Hill estate has had a very visual NO campaign - much stronger than the "yes" lobby. We have had lots of leaflets and there are posters everywhere. Residents I know have nightmare stories of TMOs and are not keen to see any change at all - the general feeling (amongst those I've spoken to) seems to be that people are more or less happy - or at least accepting - with the way things are at the moment and any change is bound to be problematic.
editor said:
do vote no, you need to be able to vote for your landlords if you want to challenge their decisions effectively, which you won't be able to with an ALMO. having read violent panda's post, it is a good idea to get to the housing office and email your councillors ASAP, if you and your block have not received the ballot papers. and if you still can't vote, it ma be possible to challenge the results. I can't remember the details, but someone was able to challenge Tower Hamlets council over a vote on the Ocean estate, in the high court. I'll try to dig out the details but I believe someone else on the boards will know more about it.
William of Walworth said:
the battle continue, hope is rising again since the announcement by yvette cooper, the new housing minister, on the 2nd of April in the daily mirror and now confirmed by gordon brown of new council housing to be built. having said, there is probably a trick somewhere, I don't trust this lot. Southwark DCH will be working on that.
gaijingirl
Well-Known Member
I'm surprised...
aurora green
Tectonic
Onket said:
I heard it as well, but I understand there may be challenges.....
may the battle continue!
ViolentPanda said:Can you check with any of your neighbours whether they've had their papers? Not that I'm suspicious that Lambeth would have deliberately left out the details of a whole block when they sent all the relevant info to the Electoral Reform Society (who were the people who sent the voting papers out), oh no.
I'd get on to your housing office ASAP though, because I'm pretty damn sure that next friday (27th) is the voting deadline.
did you mean this friday tomorrow (the 20th) or next week? I spoke to someone in Lambeth DCH yesterday, the deadline was monday just gone, extended to tuesday just gone, (postal strike thursday night, I believe).
Onket said:
ground for a challenge? my feeling is that the whole thing was rigged. I haven't got the exact questions (not a straight yes or a no, but 4 questions leading to one direction only, guess which one) asked in front of me, but they were definitely misleading.
gaijingirl
Well-Known Member
I typed the questions up on this thread in post # 3 - here they are again:
1..Are you aware that there are plans to create an ALMO which would manage homes on behalf of Lambeth and improve services to residents?
Yes No Don't know
2.Are you aware that with the ALMO for Lambeth you will remain tenants and leaseholders of the Council
Yes No Don't know
3.Are you aware that the ALMO could attract over £200m of additional investment to make homes decent in Lambeth?
Yes No Don't know
4.Would you support setting up an ALMO for Lambeth to deliver these improvements
Yes No Don't know
1..Are you aware that there are plans to create an ALMO which would manage homes on behalf of Lambeth and improve services to residents?
Yes No Don't know
2.Are you aware that with the ALMO for Lambeth you will remain tenants and leaseholders of the Council
Yes No Don't know
3.Are you aware that the ALMO could attract over £200m of additional investment to make homes decent in Lambeth?
Yes No Don't know
4.Would you support setting up an ALMO for Lambeth to deliver these improvements
Yes No Don't know
aurora green
Tectonic
It's all bullshit.
gaijingirl said:
what I am told is that there may be problems for the ALMO being set up because the council has not got the two stars required to do that. I don't know what that means, so someone else can explain. but it's clear from the post above that the questions asked were rather misleading.
aurora green said:
but they got away with it. so far, anyway.
aurora green said:
I really want to see details, figures, turnout, whether there's a significant number of estates/blocks/tenants that never got ballot papers etc.
Maybe the apparant change in the date deadline might have confused? Even the clued up Violent Panda thought the deadline was the 27th ...
It all sounds well dodgy from what I read in this thread ...
Links to the results etc.??
What is know about the prospective ALMO? (apols if I missed anything earlier in the thread).
