Thank you Kerry Grove for featuring the disquiet among residents about the recent questionnaire sent by QA Research to council tenants.
This was less research than a public relations exercise. Does QA stand for Questions Answered?
Tenants were given a text to study then tested on it. A pass mark will get your homes repaired, failure means that you sit in your home while the walls collapse around you.
advertisement
The Federation of Residents' Associations has been engaged in an exercise to establish a contract with the council over consultation and the involvement of residents in the management of their properties.
At a recent meeting of the housing committee, its spokesman made it very clear that this type of consultation was far from what he had in mind.
Only one option was offered by QA. It reported that the council had considered other options but had rejected them.
It did not say what they were nor give the reasoning behind their rejection. Presumably so as not to confuse the recipients.
The spokesman for the federation gave three more options and said there were more that could be considered and that many forms of tenant management had been successful in other authorities.
There is another dimension to this issue, wider than that of house repairs, important though this is to the tenant or leaseholder.
My council tax and rates and that of my parents in the 30s paid for these homes. They belong to all council taxpayers, as well as to the tenant.
They are a public resource, not a fiefdom of councillors or their public servants who would sell the family silver to fund their lavish lifestyles.
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
Print
Email this
Comment
