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Housing Services at South
Kesteven District Council are going through a radical change at the moment. The Head of Housing Mr P Doughty was made redundant
and a new interim Director of Tenant Services was appointed. Her name is Valerie Hayllor who was the Chief Executive of Sevenside
Housing which took over the housing stock of Shrewbury & Atcham Borough Council in 2001 and was formerly with the Maidenhead
& District Housing Association. If the SKDC have their own way the housing stock will be transferred to an housing association
within two years. 60% of tenants voted in a recent feedback survey to stay with the council. The final decision will rest
in a ballot of tenants within 18 months. It is all about reaching a Decent Homes Standard by 2010. Did you know that
83% of their homes already meet the Decent Homes Standard? Who says so? The Audit Commission do in a report. From available reports the SKDC appears to be a good landlord so why change? It appears that the
majority of tenants don’t want to change. Why should they just because the Central Government is pushing for stock
transfer and privatisation of council properties.
Housing Stock Transfer -
The Facts
The net book value of the council dwellings as
at the 31st March 2004 was £325,243 million.
Using the stock transfer version of the stock
condition
survey the stock has been valued
at £48 million.
The set-up costs of an housing
association
will be about £4 million. The
Central Government
will get a levy of about
£8 million. Debt
repayment to the Housing
Revenue Account will be
about £1 million.
The net capital receipt
will be about
£35 million
What is so laughable is that the District
Valuer advised the SKDC to revalue its
housing stock by £65,944 million as at
the
31st March 2004 which is much more
than it
would get if it sold off its dwellings !
Tenants
rise up and say NO to the transfer of your homes
Click here for more information about stock transfer
The Government
of the East Midlands has agreed with South Holland that they can continue to manage their council homes after tenants overwhelmingly
said they wanted to stay with the Council. Likewise in North Kesteven the Council is applying to the GOEM to continue to manage
its 4000 homes. 58.1% of tenants in Sedgefield the Prime Minister’s own constituency voted against transfer of their
homes to Sunderland Housing Group.
Labour
is working with the following organisations in South Kesteven in order to help you protect your rights:
Unison - Amicus -
GMB - South Lincolnshire
Housing Institute
e-mail:lee@leesteptoe.org.uk
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