Transfer tenants are happiest
WE have now received the ballot paper, and Defend Council Housing is now going into overdrive with its scare tactics and mis-information. The leaflets you may have had are not correct, and the loud hailer on Remembrance Sunday is just poor taste. But the
WE have now received the ballot paper, and Defend Council Housing is now going into overdrive with its scare tactics and mis-information.
The leaflets you may have had are not correct, and the loud hailer on Remembrance Sunday is just poor taste. But the best evidence is that transfer tenants are the happiest tenants and the largest survey of tenants ever undertaken proves it.
I can give you this quote from Yvette Cooper, Government Housing Minister, September 20 2006: "We have seen a massive programme of investment across housing associations and through stock transfers working hard to transform tenants lives. And it really does. I have visited the homes of families who have finally got rid of draughty windows, and out-dated kitchens - we should not underestimate the importance and impact of this on peoples lives." But I and other Fenland tenants always check the facts for ourselves and I have witnessed this through my own eyes.
Mr Marais a Cambridge tenant (is he benefiting from Fenland tenants' rent money lost to other areas?) asserts that I should not rely on information from the National Housing Federations website due to it being "the organisation of housing association bosses." I would like to take this opportunity to inform Mr Marais that I do not.
The fact that 17 per cent of housing associations did not reply to National Audit Offices investigation into stock transfer RSL's is not sufficient to assert that they had broken their rent guarantees. These aren't my words, but those of Joe Cavanagh, head of the investigative team for the National Audit Office.
The investigation (undertaken by an organisation independent of the government) concluded that, in terms of rent guarantees, stock transfers RSL's had performed "excellently".
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The matter has also been addressed in Parliament. In a written response to a question from Austin Mitchell MP relating to rent promises, Yvette Cooper said "no registered social landlord established for the purpose of receiving housing from a local authority has broken rent commitments given to tenants as ballot".
This goes to show that tenants should be wary of some of the things DCH presents as facts. The information provided by the council has been checked for inaccuracies and verified by external sources. Please consider the real facts, not the fiction.
BRENDA REYNOLDS
March tenant and Shadow Board member
Smiths Drive
March