CIH Urged to Invite Anti-Bedroom Tax Tenant to Speak at Conference

Social tenants across the country have signed a letter to the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) opposed to the bedroom tax. The letter calls on landlords to oppose the government's controversial under-occupancy policy and requests that the CIH invite a tenant to speak on the subject at the organisation's conference at the end of June.  Organised by campaign group Defend Council Housing, the letter comes after 36 councils called for the abolition of the policy earlier this week.  Read more on 24dash.

Campaigners Unite To Fight Housing Benefit Cuts

More than 30 tenant, trade union and campaign groups are linking up to build a national umbrella campaign to fight cuts to housing benefit.  Initial plans from The Campaign for Benefit Justice, which will also oppose ‘attacks’ on other benefits, include protests aimed at Lord Freud, the welfare minister, and Iain Duncan Smith, secretary of state for work and pensions. The campaign will also stage a protest on Budget day and a summit in London. The 31 groups backing the campaign include Defend Council Housing and Disabled People Against Cuts campaigns and the trade unions Unite and the Public and Commercial Services Union.  Read more on the Defend Council Housing website.

Council Plans to Freeze Rents

The UK's largest stock holding local authority is planning to freeze council rents until 2013, despite being given the freedom to set them from this year. Birmingham City Council - which manages more than 60,000 homes - said it also plans to extend the freeze to service charges for the second consecutive year. This includes concierge, caretaking and cleaning that are provided to tenants. From April 2012, councils will be able to keep their rental income - instead of it being pooled and distributed by the Government. In return, however, they must pay off the historic debt attached to their properties from when they were first built. This will see them pay off some £19 billion. As a result, councils across the country are announcing rent increases as high as 8% as they bid to tackle their debt burdens. It has prompted campaign group Defend Council Housing to call on the Government to "re-open" talks on the debt settlement for local authorities. Read more on the Birmingham City Council website.

Councils Reject Government's Rent Rise Plans

Ipswich Borough Council is the latest local authority to reject Government guidelines that propose a 7.2 per cent rent rise for council tenants. Councillors decided to settle for a 5.6 per cent rise instead. Campaign group Defend Council Housing has recently warned that the Government’s self-financing reforms – which will see councils shoulder a near £20 billion debt burden – will force councils to endorse “huge rent rises”. A spokesman for Ipswich Borough Council told 24dash: “The 7.2 per cent rise was part of Government guidelines and was the highest we could go to. “However we decided to settle for 5.6 per cent, in accordance with the Retail Price Index.” Read more on 24dash.

Tenants Demand Protection from Welfare Cuts

Campaigners are calling on social landlords not to evict tenants who fall behind on rent payments because of housing benefit cuts. Defend Council Housing has issued a seven-point list of demands, and is stepping up its campaigning action, claiming the government is ‘fuelling a housing emergency’. As well as opposing welfare reforms it is also hitting out at rent rises, affordable rent, tenure reform, and the ‘scapegoating’ of social tenants. Read more on Inside Housing.

Council Calls for Government Rethink On Rent

The government is coming under increasing pressure to cap rent increases for council tenants after local authorities warned that 8 per cent hikes are likely to affect the most vulnerable residents. Cambridge Council has written to the CLG urging it to adjust the formula that dictates how much councils should add on to tenants’ rents. The letter to CLG said that the proposed increases for 2012/13, which will be more than 8 per cent in many parts of the country, including Cambridge, could increase the housing benefit bill at a time when government policy is focused on moving people away from welfare dependency. Download a copy of the letter from the Defend Council Housing website.

Controversial Transfer Made Official

The controversial transfer of homes from Wycombe District Council to a new housing association has taken place after Defend Council Housing (DCH) failed in its attempt to mount a legal challenge. The transfer of the 6,700 homes to Red Kite Community Housing followed a major consultation undertaken by the council which resulted in tenants narrowly backing the plans in a ballot by 2,661 votes to 2,027. Opponents of the plans, led by DCH with support from Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors, claimed that the transfer receipts would be used for 'non-housing purposes' and there was a lack of provision for new affordable housing. Read more on the Wycombe District Council website.

Transfer Approval Raises Threat of Legal Action

Wycombe District Council has approved the transfer of its homes to a community housing association, raising the prospect of legal challenge to the move. Campaigners had threatened to seek a judicial review blocking the transfer if the council gave it the go ahead. Councillors have now approved the transfer of more than 6,000 homes to Red Kite Community Housing, with 32 votes for, and 10 against. Housing minister Grant Shapps will now consider the proposal, which is scheduled to go ahead on 12 December. Tenants were balloted on the transfer in April this year, with 2,661 votes for, and 2,027 against, and turnout at 65 per cent. Campaign group Defend Council Housing claims tenants were given misleading information ahead of the ballot, and has said it will use legal means to block the move. Read more on Inside Housing.

Campaigners Threaten Legal Action to Block Transfer

Campaigners are threatening to use legal action to block the transfer of 6,500 local authority homes despite the move being approved by tenants. Defend Council Housing has said it will go to judicial review if housing minister Grant Shapps signs off the transfer of 6,500 Wycombe District Council homes to newly formed not-for-profit body Red Kite Community Housing. Tenants approved the transfer by 2,661 votes to 2,027 in a ballot in April this year, with turnout at 65 per cent. The campaigners argue that misleading information was given to tenants about the transfer consultation, and have also accused the council of failing to carry out a full ‘options appraisal’ looking at alternatives to transfer. The council said it has worked with tenants at every stage of the transfer process, and pointed out that Red Kite will be headed by a local tenant. Read more on Inside Housing.

Protestors to Hit Council Over Housing Allocation

Campaigners are targeting a council in protest against changes to its allocation of social housing. Defend Council Housing has organised the protest against Westminster Council in opposition to its policy of prioritising people in employment. The council announced in September that it had decided to give priority to households where the main applicant has been working under a written contract for at least two years. People who have been seeking work for the same period of time will be eligible for extra points if they have been engaged with the council’s homelessness employment learning project. DCH said the change in policy penalised the jobless in allocating housing and called for the council to reconsider. Read more on Inside Housing.

Protest Planned Against Social Housing 'Attacks'

A pressure group is planning to protest outside parliament against government attacks on social housing tenants and call for more homes to be built. Defend Council Housing is holding the Housing Emergency protest on 15 November to oppose the proposed changes to tenancies, rents and benefits set out in the Localism Bill. The national protest follows action across Britain which rejects attacks on secure tenancies, affordable rent levels and evictions. Find full details on the Defend Council Housing website.

Benn to Shadow Pickles In Milliband Reshuffle

Hilary Benn will be facing Eric Pickles at the dispatch box after his appointment as Communities and Local Government Secretary in Labour’s shadow cabinet reshuffle. Benn replaces Caroline Flint who moves to the energy and climate change portfolio. Former Housing Minister John Healey has left the opposition front benches, and Alison Seabeck has lost the housing brief she previously held, becoming Shadow Defence Minister. Seabeck said that the housing review she was working on with Caroline Flint has already been submitted to Ed Miliband. Seabeck is replaced by Jack Dromey. Dromey is MP for Birmingham Erdington, entering parliament in 2010 after a career of more than three decades in the trade union movement. The husband of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Harriet Harman, Dromey was a member of the policy forum that produced Labour's 2007 Green Paper ‘Homes for the future: more affordable, more sustainable’ in 2007. He is also a supporter of the pressure group Defend Council Housing. The full shadow communities and local government team is:
Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP
Jack Dromey MP
Helen Jones MP
Roberta Blackman-Woods MP
Chris Williamson MP
Lord (Bill) McKenzie
Lord (Sir Jeremy) Beecham

Tenants Should Decide Future of ALMOs

A new wave of council housing privatisation is threatened in a new Open Public Services White Paper.It says ministers will explore: whether semi-autonomous public sector bodies should now be made fully autonomous, for example, by moving ALMOs in social housing into the housing association sector. The 60 ALMOs will face a drive to full privatisation. DCH warned of this two-stage privatisation threat when we campaigned against ALMOs. The White Paper ignores the principle of Tenant Choice, and the right to a ballot on any stock transfer.

Campaigners Push for Localism Bill Changes

Campaigners are urging tenants to lobby their MPs to object to key housing reforms due to be debated in parliament this week. Defend Council Housing wants MPs to speak out against changes to lifetime tenancies, homelessness law, waiting lists, and council housing finance. The Localism Bill is due to be debated in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week. The wide-ranging bill would allow social landlords to introduce fixed-term tenancies, which could last as little as two years. DCH also objects to plans to limit access to waiting lists, and remove the right of homeless people to refuse offers of accommodation in the private sector. Read more on Inside Housing.

The Great Estate: The Rise and Fall of the Council House – TV Programme

Journalist and author Michael Collins presents a hard-hitting and heartwarming history of one of Britain's greatest social revolutions - council housing. At its height in the mid-1970s, council housing provided homes for over a third of the British population. From the 'homes for heroes' cottages that were built in the wake of the First World War to the much-maligned, monolithic high rises of the 60s and 70s, Collins embarks on a grand tour of Britain's council estates. He visits Britain's first council estate, built as an antidote to London's disease and crime-ridden Victorian slums, the groundbreaking flats that made inter-war Liverpool the envy of Europe, the high rise estate in Sheffield that has become the largest listed building in the world, and the estate built on the banks of the Thames that was billed as 'the town of the 21st century'. Along the way he meets the people whose lives were shaped by an extraordinary social experiment that began with a bang at the start of the 20th century and ended with a whimper 80 years later. The programme is shown;
1. Mon 11 Apr 2011 - 21:00 - BBC Four
2. Tue 12 Apr 2011 - 02:45 - BBC Four
Find full details on the BBC website.

Tenants to Join TUC's Protest March over 'Attack' On Tenancies

Tenants will be in London next Saturday to join the giant TUC protest on the 26 March, opposing the Coalition's spending cuts. Council tenants will march with housing association and private tenants groups to show growing anger at the Government's reforms to end security of tenure for new social housing tenants, higher rents and cuts to housing benefit. Tenants will assemble with banners at Middle Temple Lane, London at 11am Saturday March 26.
Campaign group Defend Council Housing says the Localism Bill will give landlords power to remove secure tenancies, forcing the homeless into insecure private renting. They are urging MPs to sign an Early Day Motion and commit to supporting amendments in the Bill's 3rd Reading.

Government Accused of Concealing Tenant Revolt over Two-Year Tenancies

Campaign group Defend Council Housing (DCH) has accused the Government of trying to "sweep under the carpet" the angry response from tenants at threats to secure tenancies and genuinely affordable rents. It claims the Government’s summary of responses to its consultation Local Decisions: a fairer future for social housing is extremely misleading, with tenant and other organisations being ignored. The Government consultation summary says: “A large majority of respondents expressed the view that two years would rarely or never be enough for a general needs social tenancy." And two-thirds of local authorities said there was not enough private sector accommodation available for the homeless." However, DCH has said that the document ignores a large number of organisations who have objected in the "strongest possible terms to proposed fixed-term tenancies". Read more on 24dash.

“Local Decisions” Consultation Paper

Defend Council Housing have drawn together a number of responses to the Government’s consultation paper, “Local decisions: a fairer future for social housing”, including those from TAROE, Shelter, CIH and, of course, their own. Find them on the DCH website by clicking on the logo below.

Miliband Announces Shadow CLG Team

The Labour Party has announced the MPs who will work with Caroline Flint to shadow the CLG.  Alison Seabeck, Barbara Keeley, Jack Dromey, and Chris Williamson will work alongside Ms Flint, who was handed the job of shadow communities secretary last week. The party has not yet announced which of the MPs will take on the shadow housing brief. Mr Dromey, the MP for Birmingham, Erdington, has been a prominent advocate of the need for more affordable housing and supporter of pressure group Defend Council Housing.  Read more on Inside Housing.

New Manifesto for Council Housing Launched At DCH Conference

More than 250 delegates from 45 areas signed up to a new Manifesto for Council Housing at Defend Council Housing's annual conference last week. Speakers at the event in central London included Austin Mitchell MP, who demanded that the Government release its detailed council housing finance reform proposals without further delay. Eileen Short, chair of DCH said: "Support for council housing is growing and broadening, as the conference has shown. "We have forced government to shift policy. Now we will step up the campaigns against privatisation and demand that any politician who wants our votes pledges in writing their support for our Manifesto." Read the full story on the 24dash website.