ITNET Fiasco – IWCA starts advice surgeries
Posted: May 20, 2000 Filed under: ITnet Comments Off on ITNET Fiasco – IWCA starts advice surgeries 
When Hackney and Islington councils tendered out their benefits provision to private company ITNET, even the most pessimistic opponent of privatisation couldn’t have realised how much worse things could get. Thanks to ITNET’s pitiful service – all nicely sewn up in a contract that has no leeway for penalising them for poor performance – thousands have people have had to wait for as long as eighteen months for their correct benefit to be paid. Hundreds of others across both boroughs have been sent threatening and intimidating letters over council tax and rent arrears that are not their fault, and in some cases people have been driven into breakdowns or eviction.
The letters pages of local papers such as the Hackney Gazette and the Highbury and Islington Express have been piled high with letters from tenants complaining about the service that ITNET have provided. But has anything changed ? Tenants have tried writing to councillors, MPs, direct to ITNET, but with no noticeable improvement in service. Islington council are even reported to have suggested throwing more money ITNET’s way to get them to sort out the mess.
In Hackney, the group WHOSE BENEFIT ? has been set up by victims of the ITNET fiasco; the group includes Vernon Williams, a Hackney Independent Councillor who – being on benefits himself – has been threatened with being debarred from office – unable to vote as a councillor – because of his arrears. The IWCA has been involved in this group from the initial meeting and has started work on offering practical support for tenants who have been left high and dry by this mess.
ADVICE SURGERIES
The IWCA started by leafletting the Geffrye and Harman Street Estates in Shoreditch, advertising an advice surgery, which took place last Monday (15th May) and offered specialist benefits advice to local people. This successful surgery is due to be repeated on other estates in Hackney, so if you are interested contact the IWCA number or email us with details.
Year 2000 News Archive
Posted: April 30, 2000 Filed under: Gentrification / Regeneration, Privatisation / Sell Offs, Uncategorized Comments Off on Year 2000 News ArchiveA Sorry Picture
A story in this week’s Hackney Gazette seems to back up what the IWCA has been saying for some time about the gentrification of Shoreditch. Under the headline “Cool Britannia” brigade driven out by rent hike the Gazette tells us that artists who were encouraged into the area by government cash supposed to secure cheap studio space, are now being forced out of the area by rocketing property rents and service charges. One artist claims that rents are now as much as £320 a week and service charges £700 a quarter.
While we won’t be particularly sad to wave goodbye to some of these over-rated, under-talented media tarts, there is a more serious side to this exodus of goatee beards and berets. As Glasshouse property developers managing director David Nicholson states, “we are not a charity, we are a commercial business and we’ve never lead anyone to believe we were anything else”. Ring any bells ? Just look at the plans Hackney Council have for housing, leisure and learning. Initial cash injections followed by leaving it all to market forces. And why do these companies get involved ? Because they think they can make a profit. Helpfully, David Nicholson tells us “It comes down to market forces which we don’t control”. Perhaps in a couple of years – once more council houses have been dumped into the private sector, rents have started to spiral out of control and all the leisure and learning services have been sold off – we might be told the same thing: “Market forces…blah blah blah…nothing we can do.”
Now more than ever, we need to fight to keep control of affordable housing and basic services, because if the “Cool Britannia” mob can’t afford the rents, Hackney’s working class majority sure as hell won’t either.
Surprise Surprise
As if we didn’t expect it, the ballot at Fellows Court over transfer to Pinnacle has resulted in a yes vote, meaning that 300 flats will now move into the Shoreditch Neighbourhood. As we said at the time, the ballot was a joke from start to finish. Photocopied ballot papers, with no way of being authenticated, were sent out to tenants who were then told to return them to Andrew Wilkes, a man who has a clear interest in getting a yes vote and hiving off estate management into the private sector. Fishy ?
Hackney Council to re-ballot tenants of Fellows Court
Despite having balloted residents of Fellows Court in November of last year, Hackney Council officer Andrew Wilkes has circulated a letter asking residents to vote again on the same issue that the council were defeated on last time, namely whether the estate should be transferred from Kingsland Neighbourhood in to Shoreditch. The council claims that the last vote was not valid as the “results from individual estates could not be distinguished” – a cock up in other words. There has been under two weeks’ notice given to tenants to return their ballot papers and interestingly, they are being sent back to none other than Mr Wilkes himself. Far be it from us to suggest any electoral impropriety, but wouldn’t you be suspicious if the man collecting the votes was the same man pushing for a yes vote ?
Once again, the IWCA would urge a NO vote on this transfer. as we’ve seen with the pathetic failure of IT Net and the difficulties with private contractors trying to cream off a nice profit from the sold off leisure services, once you get transferred and into the grubby hands of a private company, it’s in their interests to make money from you. How ? Well how about upping your rent, refusing to carry out repairs unless you pay and gradually forcing you out to make way for the kind of tenants they really want – yuppies.
IWCA letter in Hackney Gazette April 2000
Posted: April 10, 2000 Filed under: Community Safety, Gentrification / Regeneration, ITnet, Privatisation / Sell Offs Comments Off on IWCA letter in Hackney Gazette April 2000Hackney IWCA was pleased to see in the Gazette of 23rd March that residents of Hawksley Court estate had successfully prevented the installation of a mobile phone mast. This is exactly the sort of community-led initiative that the IWCA supports and it is good to see local people standing up against the spread of these masts which are dangerous and unwanted .
When Hackney Council and private companies like Orange treat ordinary working class people with such disdain is it surprising that residents get sick of being treated like second class citizens? From the disasters of IT Net, the lack of consultation over tenants being “decanted” from Florence Court right through to the dubious ballot over Fellows Court’s transfer and now this example of arrogance, it should be clear to us that the council will only sit up and take notice when we take matters into our own hands.
The residents of Hawksley Court have set a good example to the rest of the borough.
Hackney Independent: Stanway Newsletter
Posted: March 23, 2000 Filed under: Anti-social Behaviour, Community Facilities, Labour Party, New Deal, Newsletters, Police, Privatisation / Sell Offs, Shoreditch Comments Off on Hackney Independent: Stanway Newsletter
OUT OF ORDER
Tenants across Shoreditch and South Hackney are fed up of having our lives disrupted by anti-social elements. Loud music, in-your-face drug use, syringes left on the stairs, vandalism and muggings can all make life hell. For most of us, life is hard enough without having to live through this.
Anti-social behaviour on our estates has been the biggest single issue raised with us since the last newsletter. Many people have complained repeatedly to the police, the Council and Pinnacle and have been sickened by their lack of response. Can you imagine the police taking no notice if these problems were going on in Hampstead or Chelsea?
The Council have run this area down. They leave the streets filthy. They don’t offer our kids play facilities or enough youth clubs. The Council, and Pinnacle in Shoreditch, don’t carry out the basic repairs our homes need, and seem either unwilling or unable to tackle the problems – as long as it stays in working class areas. We have problems with two sorts of vandals – the young ones who we can see terrorising our estates – and the ones in suits who work for Pinnacle and the Council.
Maybe the police, the Council and Pinnacle really don’t give a damn about us and the areas we live in. After all very few councillors and senior officers live around here. As they let this area run down – both through doing nothing about the anti-social elements and through not spending our rent money on improving our homes – you have to ask whether this is all part of a deliberate plan. We all know that they want to drive us out and fill this area with yuppies from the City. And you can bet that they won’t turn a blind eye to anti-social behaviour if the rich take over the area!
Lets get this straight. The police, the Council and Pinnacle have a duty to solve these problems. But they have shown themselves to be unwilling and unable to solve them. And so we need to begin to find our own solutions. The IWCA has begun discussions with tenants on a number of estates to look at ways of solving this problem. We cannot sit back and let anti-social elements take over our estates. This has always been a strong working class area, and we need working class solutions to the problem of anti-social behaviour.
Let us know what you think the major problems on your estate are. If you have any comments or views on this issue, please get in touch with the IWCA through the address and phone number given at the bottom of the page.
New Deal or Raw Deal? We know what you are doing.
Hackney Council have been letting our homes run down for the last 30 years. The difference now is that running our estates down is part of a plan. The Council want to make things so bad that we are prepared to accept anything else as an improvement.
This year the New Deal will be pushing two “choices” at us. Plan A is to sell-off our homes to housing associations, and Plan B is to bring in a Private Finance Initiative.
One New Deal Board member sent us the following letter, which we are happy to re-print.
“In the next 2-6 months there will be intensive consultation with the community commissioned by Shoreditch New Deal to find out what housing Shoreditch people supposedly want. I strongly suspect the questions will be loaded to engineer private sector solutions. Could you possibly print in your next Newsletter to tenants a warning not be conned, with the simple message, NO STOCK TRANSFER, NO NEW LANDLORDS.”
This is the New Deal’s Plan A. But their Plan B has just as many problems. Their idea is to raise money by:
1. selling-off some land and homes. All five “options” for housing include sales of land and three of them involve selling-off homes;
2. putting up the rents. Hard-line New Deal supporter, Winnie Ames stated in the Gazette on 13 January 2000, “As for the rents having to go up, if anyone thinks we can have our homes refurbished, new windows and lifts as well as in some cases new roofs, without a rent increase, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.” So Mrs Ames argues that we should pay more rent than now, if the Council finally fulfils its obligations and repairs our homes.
3. letting Pinnacle borrow money. Kingsland News, the Council’s sales pitch to get estates like Colville and St Mary’s that are in the New Deal area, but not yet run by Pinnacle to go over to them had the following quote. “If all the Council housing is managed by JSS Pinnacle, then all will be able to benefit from any new forms of investment that JSS Pinnacle and the New Deal manage to attract. This is possible because JSS Pinnacle are a private company, and they are able to raise private funds.” Some New Deal Board members may not be happy with this, but the Council and Pinnacle – who are the ones calling the shots – have given the game away.
The problem for them is that the figures don’t add up. As with PFI in hospitals you end up giving so much away in interest to the banks and profits to the contractors that it is just not worth it. It would not be a problem to the Council or Pinnacle if hundreds of our homes have to be sold off to balance the books – but how would the New Deal supporters explain this in the community?
To avoid taking the blame for this later, New Deal Board members should demand that whatever plans the New Deal comes up with GUARANTEES that there will be “not one less Council home in Shoreditch at the end of the New Deal.” When, and only when, this is guaranteed will the IWCA be able to give any support to the New Deal. Until this is guaranteed we will continue to build up opposition, and prepare to fight to defend our homes.
Some other questions for PFI supporters on the New Deal Board:
- Did you know that Pinnacle are promising the Council that they can keep the £5,000,000 a year profit that Hackney Council makes from Shoreditch rents?
- Did you know that Pinnacle are trying to stitch up the contract for themselves, so no other company will compete with them to bring in the PFI?
We just cannot trust this company. They are only in Shoreditch to make a profit, and not satisfied with running the housing contract they want the to make even more money out of us through the PFI. We need to draw up our own solutions for the problems in Shoreditch – and Pinnacle are no part in them.
OPPOSING PRIVATISATION
Eugene Francis is one of the elected tenant minority on the New Deal Board. In his election campaign he promised to oppose the privatisation of housing management, to keep people aware of all the decisions being made about the area and to make the workings of the New Deal Board more “transparent” to local residents. The IWCA put the same questions to him as we put to the other candidates in the letters page of the Hackney Gazette.
How will you oppose plans to sell off council homes in Shoreditch?
Any way I can. Before standing as a candidate in the elections for the New Deal Board, I was already fighting plans to privatise the management of our homes, which, as far as I’m concerned, is only one step away from sell off. I’ve pledged to continue this opposition even if I have to produce the leaflets and other information myself.
In what ways will you be accountable to Shoreditch tenants now you are elected?
I have already produced leaflets and information for residents in Shoreditch and I will continue doing so, making sure residents know what is going on. I also have a website and I am keen to hear from anyone who has a comment to make, whether they agree with my views or not. (My e-mail address is eugene.francis@virgin.net) Bear in mind also, that the IWCA and Tenants Associations have a valuable – and perhaps the most critical – part to play when it comes to ensuring that people are better informed about what’s happening. I have no qualms about people knowing my views and have already insisted that the way each Board member votes should be recorded so that the public can see what their representative has said their area would or would not be happy with.
Obviously, if I or any other elected representative is not reflecting the views of their community then the community must make it know, either by contacting their representative or any member of the Board directly; and ultimately by not voting for that person if they stand for re-election.
The New Deal Board does have a website the address is: www.shoreditchnewdeal.co.uk you can also write, visit or phone the New Deal Shop at: 182 Hoxton Street N1. Tel: 0207 729 8987
Do you believe that people other people on the Board, like the business representatives, have the same interests as the elected Tenants Representatives?
Without going into personalities, it’s painfully obvious that the views of the business representatives will differ from those of the Tenants Reps. For a start, business representatives are probably not representing people with a cockroach infestation problem or people who have to live and sleep in rooms that are so damp they’re covered in fungus and the wallpaper is falling off the walls.
That said, one cannot survive without the other i.e. we must encourage businesses to locate here, stay and expand, so that the local community will benefit, not just with shelf-filling jobs. I would like to see it made a condition that companies locating here train local people to fill management and other jobs too. Personally, I believe the person filling the shelves usually makes a greater contribution to the companies’ success than the management; however, the reality is that managers are paid more.
Will you resign and speak out publicly when the Board makes decisions against the interests of Shoreditch’s working class majority?
Although one should never say never, I cannot envisage an issue arising that would make me feel compelled to resign; remember, if we do not have people fighting to represent the views of the masses, the cycle of exclusion and deprivation as a result of that exclusion will continue, and there’s no guarantee that if I resigned, my replacement would promote the views of the working class majority. What is really needed is the greater involvement of local people, particularly those belonging to sections of the community that are not represented on the Board; e.g. the Asian, Turkish speaking or the Vietnamese sections of our community.
Not waving but drowning
Time to stand and fight for Haggerston Baths
In a stunning display of political cowardice and deceit, Hackney council has closed Haggerston Baths. A Health and Safety report (compiled in a 20 minute visit, and published – coincidentally of course – 3 days after private bidders for the pool had met with the council) claimed that the pool was a “risk to the users and workers at the centre”. Local people have smelt a rat and suspicions over the timing of the closure have been reinforced by a secret document obtained by the Haggerston Pool Community Action group which reveals that the pool has been closed in order to free up funds for the Clissold Pool. As one speaker at a packed emergency meeting put it, “A poorer part of the borough is being used to subsidise the building of a lovely new leisure centre in a better off part of the borough”.
The document reveals that the bidders for running the councils leisure facilities (all of which are up for tender) have demanded a larger injection of cash from the council in order to make a profit and satisfy their shareholders. This is the logic of this PFI-style initiative – which the council is now trying to apply to housing too – if there’s no profit for private business then they’re just not interested. All of this flies in the face of the work done by the local community in putting forward its own scheme for running the pool and goes to show what the IWCA has been saying all along: if you’re working class the council couldn’t care less.
Now is the time to stand and fight for Haggerston Baths. And let’s not let the Haggerston Labour Councillors Young and Nicholson off the hook. Labour voted to close the baths. We will remember this in the next elections in 2002.
Focus on Charles Square & Pitfield Estate
As part of an ongoing series focussing on estates, the IWCA looks at the issues raised by tenants of Charles Square & Pitfield Estate. Like other estates in Shoreditch, both Charles Square and Pitfield show signs of their age. One in three flats on Charles Square have no central heating, whereas Pitfield Estate has none at all. Newer blocks on the estate have had central heating from day one and tenants have been campaigning for at least 20 years to get the rest up to scratch.
Most ground floor flats on Pitfield Estate are suffering from damp, where the lack of central heating, combined with the estate being built on marshland has caused the problem. Gentrification has made the situation even worse as the already fragile sewers and drains are being overloading by the Council allowing residential developments to go up all over the south of the area. The balance between industry and housing in the south that used to exist has now been so upset that the yuppie lofts and housing association properties (with rents set beyond the reach of council tenants) are now, literally, swamping the estates with their sewage.
Coupled with this comes the added burden the “night time economy” brings to the estate. Being right next to the trendy bars and clubs the Council are encouraging to spring up in the area, Charles Square & Pitfield Estate have faced the brunt of the increase in drugs, prostitution, break-ins and muggings. “We are asking for caretakers and entry phones for our security but we can’t get the money,” said one leading tenant. The individuals running the clubs are getting rich but local residents are not seeing any benefits themselves. How many of us use these new bars? And how many of us have got jobs in these places?
With all the New Deal money flooding into the area, as the Council would have us believe, why then is south Shoreditch not in the so-called “New Deal Inner core”? To cut a long story short, the Council don’t care what happens to tenants, in fact they don’t even want them to be council tenants much longer. “They’re deliberately running down our estate so they can step later and privatise us,” said one tenant.
With Pinnacle and the Council continuing to let down the tenants on Pitfield & Charles Square, the only solution is for the tenants themselves to take action to improve their estate.
Community information for Charles Square and Pitfield Hoxton Lions Club: Boxing on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – 6.15-8.45pm Computers on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays – 7.00-8.30pm Youth Club 8-22 years. Monday to Thursday 6.30-9.30pm Bell Club. Irish Dancing on Tuesdays, Over 60’s Bingo on Thursdays
Living With Canalside
Hackney Council and the housing associations tell us how much better off we’ll be when our homes are sold off, but George Birch, Chair of HAWK Tenants & Resident Association, reveals that the reality is very different. With the help of tenant’s reps like George, the IWCA will continue to show in its newsletter what life on privatised estates is actually like.
“This report is for Canalside tenants – but should be interesting for any Council tenants.
It is now a year since Canalside (made up of Metropolitan Housing Trust and Community Housing Association) took over ownership and management 700 homes on Whitmore Estate and the Eastern half of Haggerston Estate, plus one block of Kingsland Estate.
Although I am going to be critical of Canalside, it is only fair if I state the things they have done which have been good. These are:
– Canalside has paid for us to have our own Community Worker for 14 hours a week and given us some grants.
– Canalside staff have made real efforts to reach out to those off us who opposed the sale of our estates
– There has been some helpful consultation in sub-groups
– Elections to the Community Board have taken place and the right of Board members to speak out against decisions they oppose has been maintained.
But some concerns of residents about what has happened in the last year are:
1. The works programme was changed with little or no consultation. Publicity about the new works phasing is still not out. However for most tenants works will be completed quicker.
2. Before the vote we were getting things through the door all the time – now communication from Canalside is been patchy at best. For example only two rent statements have been issued since March 1999 – the latest covering 5 months.
3. We need to be consulted much earlier about proposed actions or changes of plans. For example policies have been changed without consultation – such as on moving tenants to allow works to occur. The amount of us who will have to move twice has also been increased.
4. Some extra charges have been made – for example, insurance paid weekly is now much higher than under the Council.
5. There is also a call out fee for when tenants miss appointments.
6. The number of empty homes is almost 20% – much higher than planned.
7. We still do not have a date for the introduction of caretakers – which we were promised in the vote.
8. Wages for cleaners look like being cut from the Hackney Council rates by about £3000 a year. We do care about the wages and conditions of workers on our homes.
9. Because of the chaos caused by the privatised Housing Benefit Service ITNET, many tenants have rent arrears and two evictions have already been authorised. More intensive work will be necessary to make sure that every tenant in rent arrears gets the support she or he needs.
Ascent 21, the regeneration group used by Canalside, does not consult tenants and residents groups. Why not?
As for Hackney Council, once the Ballot was won, the Estate Regeneration Strategy team which was supposed to continue supporting tenants and residents disappeared, regularly missing meetings and after March 1999 was nowhere to be seen, apart from one leaflet.
The Council has also backtracked on the vote promised to our neighbours on Haggerston West and Kingsland Estates. We were promised just before our vote that they would also have a ballot. We care about our neighbours’ futures.
A good Tenants and Residents Organisation makes the difference in keeping our new landlords to their pre vote promises. We know that it’s absolutely vital that as many tenants and actively participate. On our estates, and on all other estates, we would urge our neighbours to get involved.
For tenants on Estates still with the Council we would remind you that our estates received the 2nd highest level of government grant in the country (over £15,000 per flat) to subsidise our transfer. Privatisation won’t solve all the problems. Proper funding and sound management of housing along with strong tenant organisation makes the difference between good housing estates and the other kind!
Contact HAWK TRA at the Haggerston Community Centre on 0171 254 2312 HAWK TRA covers the Haggerston and Whitmore estates and 37-78 Bryant Court.
New Deal letters
Posted: March 10, 2000 Filed under: Media, New Deal, Shoreditch, Tenants & Residents Associations Comments Off on New Deal lettersThe letters page of the Hackney Gazette has recently covered the spat between Carole Young (former TA chair of Wenlock Barn & well-known pro-sell off member of the New Deal Board) and the IWCA following our coverage of the New Deal meeting where proposals to demolish 822 council homes were chucked out.
Carole Young accused the IWCA of “spinning” the story (like New Labour!), claiming that demolition was never a real option and that she was proud to see so many local people taking part in the decision-making processes of the New Deal – not quite the same as her response on the night itself, as Tony Butler points out below!
Spin Doctoring?
– an IWCA member responds to Carole Young’s attack on the IWCA
It’s good to see Carole Young agreeing with so many of the IWCA’s points about the New Deal’s plans to demolish 822 council homes in Shoreditch, but we’re not the ones spinning the story. If the option to demolish the council stock was just looked at to fulfil government requirements, why did the New Deal officers put it forward as their “preferred option” ? People turned up at the meeting not because of the New Deal’s record of community involvement and transparency (both of which we’d like to see more of) but because they felt their homes were at risk.
If anyone’s doing any spinning it’s Anna Eagar and her team who’re doing the rounds of the estates with glossy brochures and displays trying to convince tenants to have their blocks demolished and let the developers move in; this might seem an attractive option to someone who’s lived in a rundown block for years but it’s one with no guarantee that tenants who move out will be council tenants when (or if) they return. If you hear any rumours of the New Deal targeting your block, phone the IWCA on 07000 752752. We will help you to organise to stop them, and to campaign to get improvements carried out to your block.
Dan Carter
Hackney IWCA
Crawling out of the Woodwork
– a Wenlock Barn tenant responds to Carole Young’s attack on the IWCA
Contrary to Carole Young’s views in the letters page of 15 February, the fact is 100 people gate-crashed, and were not officially invited to this historical decision making meeting on the future of our homes. Carole’s reaction on the night, far from being happy was “it’s funny how people are now crawling out of the woodwork” (as witnessed by everyone there).
As a Council tenant in Shoreditch I would like to say thank you to some of the New Deal Board members who have consistently opposed the plans to sell off our estates. I would also like to say that if it wasn’t for the work of people like the IWCA in warning that the New Deal might be a “RAW DEAL” then most people wouldn’t have known what was going on. Where have the other political parties been in the last couple of years? Carole Young should get used to big turnouts at every meeting when her Board considers demolishing or selling off our homes.
Tony Butler
Wenlock Barn Estate
Haggerston Pool closed by Council after "Health and Safety fears
Posted: February 19, 2000 Filed under: Community Facilities, Haggerston, Privatisation / Sell Offs Comments Off on Haggerston Pool closed by Council after "Health and Safety fearsIn a stunning display of political cowardice and deceit, Hackney council has closed Haggerston Baths.
A Health and Safety report (compiled in a 20 minute visit, and published – coincidentally of course – 3 days after private bidders for the pool had met with the council) claimed that the pool was a “risk to the users and workers at the centre”.
Local people have smelt a rat and suspicions over the timing of the closure have been reinforced by a secret document obtained by the Haggerston Pool Community Action group which reveals that the pool has been closed in order to free up funds for the Clissold Pool.
As one speaker at a packed emergency meeting put it, “A poorer part of the borough is being used to subsidise the building of a lovely new leisure centre in a better off part of the borough”.
The document reveals that the bidders for running the councils leisure facilities (all of which are up for tender) have demanded a larger injection of cash from the council in order to make a profit and satisfy their shareholders, and under the logic of this PFI-style initiative (which the council is now trying to apply to housing too) if there’s no profit for private business then they’re just not interested.
All of this flies in the face of the work done by the local community in putting forward its own scheme for running the pool and goes to show what the IWCA has been saying all along: if you’re working class the council couldn’t care less.
letters in the Hackney Gazette, January 2000
Posted: January 13, 2000 Filed under: Hackney Council, Media, New Deal Comments Off on letters in the Hackney Gazette, January 2000“The New Deal and the council want Pinnacle to take over the [Kingsland]estates. The New deal wants it to happen because their whole funding plan is based on Pinnacle borrowing the money to do up blocks across Shoreditch and then sticking the rent up. The Council can’t wait top get shot of its responsibilities.”
Haggerston tenant, Carl Taylor, Hackney Gazette 6 January 2000
“Hackney has been in a chaotic mess, run by a ragbag coalition of Tories and Lib-Dems, who have sacked staff, thrown away money on redundancy payments and neglected our streets and run down the area by scrimping on repairs to homes and schools.”
New Labour Councillor Sunday Ogunwobi, Hackney Gazette 13 January 2000.
So no change from when Labour ran the Council then?
Hackney Gazette letters 1999
Posted: December 31, 1999 Filed under: Media Comments Off on Hackney Gazette letters 1999“Class crusaders have called on tenants to fight off a yuppie invasion of Shoreditch and South Hackney. The Hackney Independent Working Class Association fears that Hackney residents will be run out of the area and replaced by yuppies and City business folk. “there is nothing wrong with new homes, shops and bars, but we should have new homes for our community and shops and bars that charge prices we can afford and that employ local people stated IWCA spokesman Peter Sutton.”
Half page article on the IWCA, Gazette 2 September 1999
“Two residential homes for the elderly have been demolished to make way for new developments and libraries all over the Borough have been closed down. I don’t know about regenerating Hackney. Degenerating Hackney seems more appropriate.”
Not just in Shoreditch. Stamford Hill resident Milli Bierman , Gazette 16 September 1999
“Who do you think the new homes will be for? Overcrowded families on Wenlock Barn? Local young people who need a place of their own? The answer is that it will be more high-priced flats for City workers – while our young people are forced to move out of the area. Is this the new deal Shoreditch was promised?”
Shoreditch tenant, John Beverley Gazette, 14 October 1999
New Deal supporter Winnie Ames “says that Shoreditch tenants will be able to vote on all options for their homes under the New Deal. Presumably this includes the option to remain with Hackney Council and have it fulfil its obligations to carry out much-needed repairs. Or is this not what the New Deal is all about?”
Haggerston tenant, Carl Taylor asks the right question of the New Deal, Gazette 21 October 1999
“The town hall square development sums up the priorities of Hackney Council. Councillors from all four political parties will be able to stroll around the piazza, go inside the town hall and vote to sell off more of our estates and then relax again in the late-night café/bars. Over their cappuccinos, they can swap stories about town hall gossip as easily as most of them swap political parties – all safely under the gaze of CCTV cameras. It’s a shame life is not as easy for the rest of us, who live in the houses, use the schools and depend on the services that they are supposed to be running.”
Colin Robinson, Gazette 18 November 1999 on the £50 million Town Hall Square development.
“That [Lib Dem] Councillor Bentley should defend any project spending on regenerating the Town Hall Square when the council is not only cutting services, but also charging the elderly and sick for “community care”, illustrates the vast distance there is between the priorities of the council and the priorities of the people of Hackney.”
Myrna Shaw of the Hackney Pensioners’ Convention, Gazette 25 November 1999
“Kevin Sugrue. Head of gentrification agency Renaisi thinks that “sons and daughters policy providing affordable housing to stop young working class people from moving out” is an option that he would consider. This is surprising, since his New Labour bosses have stated that we are all middle class now.”
Terry Jeffery, Gazette 30 December 1999
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