Dead Lady’s First Floor Flat Put On Flood Risk

by Paul Scully | Aug 11, 2009 | News | 3 comments

Sutton Council recently sent a letter to a property in Cedar Road, Sutton with a booklet explaining how to clear up after a flood, how to claim on insurance, how to protect your property and about temporary housing. The Environment Agency includes such nuggets such as “wear your gloves when clearing up after a flood as water may contain sewage, chemicals and animal waste.”

As you may have gleaned from the title of this article, the council-government partnership have a little to learn about target marketing. The addressee died over two years ago. The first floor flat, far from being first for the sandbags, would make a perfect mooring point should Noah need to drop in.

The only flood plain identified by the local authority is around the banks of the River Wandle in Beddington. Quite why flats in the middle of Sutton Town Centre are being targeted is beyond me. How much has this futile exercise cost?

A Cool £16,000 for Council Leader’s Air-Con

by Paul Scully | Aug 8, 2009 | News | 7 comments

Sutton’s Liberal Democrat town hall leadership has been accused of insensitive “Emperor Nero-style largesse” after opting to spend over £16,000 on a specially tailored air conditioning system for the Council Leader’s Office. This rubs salt into the wounds of tenants of Sutton Council after they discovered that the plug has been pulled on desperately needed funding to bring tenanted properties up to the nationwide ‘Decent Homes Standard’.

Council housing in Sutton – managed by the Sutton Housing Partnership – has been labelled as amongst the worst in Britain by the Government watchdog, the Audit Commission. Housing Ministers added insult to injury last week by telling the Council that the option of £112.5million capital funding was being deferred.

After 23 years of Lib Dem administration council tenants have very little to show for it and that systematic neglect over that period has condemned tenants to more years of substandard accommodation. Conservative opposition councillors unearthed the controversial plans to spend £13,000 on the Leader’s air conditioning system, plus £3071 on ‘fees’, after they were buried in a ‘Delegated Decision Notice’.

I’m shocked and angry that the Lib Dem Council Leader is planning on billing the taxpayer for over £16,000 to pay for his luxury air conditioning after the devastating news for council tenants – frankly, it’s Emperor Nero-style largesse, while Rome burns.

This rubs salt into the wounds of tenants who have been sentenced to yet more years of living in substandard homes, missing out on Government funding because of long-term underinvestment in our council housing.

After all these years with Lib Dem council bosses in charge of housing it’s clear that tenants have very little to show for it. Argos is selling electric fans for £12.99 each; I’ll happily chip in for one to save Sutton taxpayers £16,000.

Door Slammed on Housing Cash

by Paul Scully | Jul 23, 2009 | News | 4 comments

The door has been firmly slammed shut on the Sutton Housing Partnership (SHP) by the Government for much needed investment in Sutton Council’s housing stock. The hammer blow comes after SHP’s failure to achieve the Audit Commission’s ‘Decent Homes Standard’ for a ‘two star’ status last year.

Detailed in a letter to SHP from the Homes & Communities Agency, Sutton Council will not receive a penny in capital funding needed to raise the standard of its public housing, until at least 2011/12. It is the final blow for council tenants after two decades of failure in maintaining decent homes for council tenants, by the Liberal Democrat administration, condemning tenants to more years of misery in poor quality housing.

According to figures from the National Federation of ALMOs (Arm’s Length Management Organisations) Sutton’s social housing is in the bottom 11% of the 69 ALMOs across the country. 50 of the 69 ALMOs set up since April 2002 have been judged as either ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ – this means Sutton has some of the worst social housing in Britain.

Conservative Opposition Housing Spokesman, Councillor Barry Russell, commented by saying: “This is a disaster for Sutton Council’s tenants. Lib Dem town hall bosses have failed to maintain decent housing for council tenants over a twenty-year period. They have nowhere to hide on this issue and tenants are paying the price for their failure.

“By letting our council housing fall into such a state they have condemned Sutton Housing Partnership tenants to more years of uncertainty, living in substandard accommodation.”

Just one of a number of examples of the poor state of housing was discovered by a fact-finding visit of our Housing Policy group members to June Close in Carshalton. The tenant who did not want to be named, is a working mother with two children. The photo shows her highlighting a plug socket located over a gas hob in contravention of basic safety regulations. On top of the mould in her young child’s bedroom and single glazed windows, she could barely keep the flat at a habitable temperature, telling us, “It’s like Russian Roulette with our heating. We had to get it fixed four times since the beginning of this year. In winter we have to sleep downstairs because the house gets so cold. There is a ice-cold draughty from the neglected windows and it’s horrible when it snows. What do we pay our rent and Council Tax for? We love the area and we really don’t want to move but the conditions are appalling.”

The u-turn by the Government is a disaster for Sutton and its tenants. But it is one that has been compounded by a lack of attention from the council over many years. In setting up SHP, lead councillors were more interested in playing politics with the composition of the board rather than the quality of the service delivered to tenants.