Wendling

• UNDOUBTEDLY, Camden has proved often it is a ‘caring council’ which makes many proud to live here. However, there are three major flies in the municipal ointment.

Firstly, there are large amounts of wasted money sloshing around the source of which need identifying and staunching. Much of this waste exists in the housing arena.

Secondly, we need to be open and honest about identifying things that are not successful and learn from our mistakes within housing both at management level and due to pressures on the HRA both from within and without Camden.

A Cabinet Member for Better Homes is an esoteric title meaning little of any substance. One hopes, for example, all housing provision is ‘better’ than a park bench. Meanwhile the UK government will not even back a law to require homes to be ‘fit for human habitation’.

The incumbent cabinet post holder, through the recruitment of specialised trouble-shooting officers is making headway tackling huge backlogs in repairs, setting up a Mould and Damp Task Force, improving the booking of appointments both on-line and by phone with the ‘phone back option’ proving popular. But after decades without programmed cyclical maintenance it will take years rather than months to turn the LB Camden tanker around.

Thirdly, is the diabolical situation of the Community Investment Programme, the Camden flagship programme it claims is a success or at least it sees fit to ignore the recommendations contained in the long-awaited CIP review. That very much depends on your yardstick for success. The CIP has been highly successful in limiting building of social homes owned and managed by the council to a pitiful 18.5% of the total (even though it falls well short of the 30% that Camden’s Local Plan Policy H4 requires of developers. Consequently, lack of capital receipts from intended sale of market-led private homes is conspicuous by its absence meaning lack of capital investment necessary to kick start the next batch of property building.

It is reported that the Cabinet Member responsible for regeneration when challenged at a public meeting about the low percentage of additional council socially rented homes delivered responded that he was unconvinced there was a need to increase this while simultaneously building over-priced market homes to import a wealthier class of Camden resident.

But even on these terms the CIP has failed as market homes have not sold, in part due to over-priced properties and even after reducing the selling price by £10k per unit. These properties have subsequently found their way into the local Housing Company, Camden Living, and are being used as rental accommodation.

The recent long delayed Review of the CIP by the Resources & Corporate performance Committee contained 20 plus eminently sensible and, in the opinion of many who have been closely following the whole sorry CIP saga, vitally necessary recommendations to deliver accountability against targets.

Can anyone other than a tiny handful of decision-makers themselves justify a programme (admittedly over a 15-year period and maybe longer) requiring in excess of one billion pounds investment proceed without adequate financial accounting, oversight and transparency.

There is currently a controversial credit side to the CIP accounts but no analysis of the massive debit in terms of social amenity losses, including lack of access to green open space, loss of light, loss of environmental diversity, higher densities and unsustainable practices.

It is arrogance in extremis for an elected so-called democratic organisation such as our local borough to deny such oversight. Camden’s refusal to come clean on delays of years rather than months, overspends, poor quality workmanship, legal costs and other clear breeches of proper oversight is truly shocking. This high-handed top-down approach negatively impacting so many Camden residents drives a coach and horses through any claim Camden makes to being open and transparent.

None of the preceding arguments resolve to what extent the whole CIP charade is causing multiple negative impacts on those living in council homes where regeneration has taken place nor the finances of the HRA, itself already under huge financial pressure. What we do know is that now the HRA is saddled with paying interest of the loans to build homes because Plan A of the CIP has failed and is not fit for purpose.

In response to requests for data regarding quantum, duration and whether families whose homes were demolished as part of the CIP programme still wanted to return to new homes they had been promised or had settled elsewhere, those dozens of families living in decanted Limbo, tenant activists were informed that ‘LBC did not hold that information.’ And they tell you they care!!!

FRAN HERON
Oxenholme, Harrington Square NW1