‘Local authorities and their political representatives should be given greater powers to hold these landlords much more to account at the local level’

• YOUR suggestion that housing associations should “be broken up” because they “have grown so big they are no longer able to respond to people on a personal level” is a timely suggestion, (Housing chaos: the root cause of widespread misery, Comment, October 26).

The largest housing association operating in Camden, Origin Housing (7,000 homes), is currently in merger discussions with Places for People (230,000 homes).

This follows on from a number of other housing association mergers that have taken place recently, such as the one between One Housing and The Riverside Group based in Liverpool.

These mergers increase the anxiety and uncertainty felt by residents, without bringing any noticeable improvement in the quality of the services being provided or the communication they get from their landlord.

However change needs to go much further than just reducing the size of these organisations. Local authorities and their political representatives should be given greater powers to hold these landlords much more to account at the local level.

Also we have long said that the system of “co-regulation” introduced in 2010 does not work. Asking individuals or small residents groups to hold these large landlords to account without giving them any power to do so was never going to work.

Housing association boards also need to be looked at. Resident reps on them need to be elected by their fellow residents rather than appointed by the landlord.

And company law needs to be changed as currently tenants cannot represent their fellow tenants when they are on a board and instead, by law and by culture, they have to represent the interests of the board and the organisation.

With regard to other changes in the law, the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 received royal assent on July 20. The act itself describes its purpose as being to “reform the regulatory regime to drive significant change in landlord behaviour”. Only time will tell if it does achieve that objective.

Finally, if you are a housing association resident living Camden and would like to receive invites to the quarterly meetings of Camden Housing Association Residents Group (CHARG) that we run, and where these “bigger picture” issues are discussed along with those relating directly to the housing associations operating in the borough, please email us at: admin@cfpt.org.uk and we’ll add you to the list.

ROBERT TAYLOR
Camden Federation of Private Tenants