GOVERNMENT plans to give tenants the chance to buy a stake in their council homes has angered residents who say ministers should be concentrating on sending direct investment to repair Camden’s crumbling housing stock.
The new five-year policy was toasted by Tory chief Councillor Piers Wauchope at Monday’s full council meeting – hours after it was announced by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and housing minister Keith Hill.
But the strategy was met with a lukewarm reaction from Camden’s Labour housing supremo Councillor Raj Chada.
He said: “I will be looking at these plans. I will need clarification on how this will work.”
The new government plan includes the Homebuy option – the chance for tenants in council or housing association homes to buy shares in their properties.
Ministers also backed Right-To-Buy policies.
Cllr Wauchope told Monday’s meeting the plan had first been trumpeted by Tories 18 months ago.
He said: “Labour is playing catch up. It would seem appropriate if the leader would write to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, now this is Labour Party policy, apologising for the behaviour of this council in trying to do everything we could do to restrict Right To Buy.”
But tenants failed to see the funny side. They are calling on ministers to send £283 million in direct investment to Camden’s housing department, as earmarked in 2003.
The cash has been frozen since tenants voted against government policy of generating money by hiving homes off to housing associations or switching management to Arms-Length Management Organisations (Almos).
Alan Walter, a tenants leader in Kentish Town and a campaigner for pressure group Defend Council Housing, said: “It is an outrage that the government refuses to fund the fourth option which would benefit six million council tenants but will subsidise home ownership which is beyond the reach of the majority of tenants.”