Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Victory against New Labour: Edinburgh says NO to privatisation of Council Housing Stock Transfer

Anarchobabe | 16.12.2005 00:40 | Analysis | Free Spaces | Repression | Social Struggles

Grassroots tenants groups have celebrated today the "no" vote against transfering Council Houses in Edinburgh to a newly founded Housing Association.
The City of Edinburgh Council publicised the outcome of the ballot.
53% of eligable tenants voted "No" in the ballot which had a turnout of about 60%.
The grassroot groups took on a battle against an estimated £21 million PR campaign funded by the Scottish executive - and won!
The ballot was brought forward from Spring 2006 to November 2005 to avoid unpleasant findings by Audit Scotland, which researches the effects of council housing stock transfer at the moment, and then furthermore brought the vote forward another six days to make a possible legal challenge by the Scottish Tenants Organisation impossible.
[Tenants Auction Housing Leader's House! | Edinburgh tenants 'Doormat' City Chambers | Edinburgh NO to Housing Sell Off: feature | Edinburgh NO to Housing Sell Off: article | Demolition Threat in Glasgow: feature | Demolition Threat in Glasgow: article]

logo of Britain-wide Defend Council Housing Campaign
logo of Britain-wide Defend Council Housing Campaign

fat cats win with council Housing Stock Transfer
fat cats win with council Housing Stock Transfer

Message to the councillors proposing Stock Transfer
Message to the councillors proposing Stock Transfer


Tenants of Edinburgh Council Houses will have made a decision today (Wednesday 14th of December) on the ownership transfer of their homes to the newly found City of Edinburgh Housing Association CEHA, Sian Roberts, spokesperson for Electoral Reform Services states.
The outcome of the ballot, participation and numbers will be passed on confidentially from the Electoral Reform Services to the council later this afternoon. The City of Edinburgh Council will publicise the outcome tomorrow (Thursday) as a press release on their website and inform the council tenants in writing, Jim (Surname withheld) from the "Better Homes for Edinburgh" info line said.
The tenants of the 23 000 council homes in Edinburgh had three weeks time to cast their vote, from Wednesday the 23rd of November till today, Wednesday, the 14th of December.

The decision is anticipated to end ferocious arguing of Tenants Groups supported by the trade unions such as Unison Scotland and the Britain-wide “Defend Council Housing” campaign, against the multi-million pounds expensive PR campaign “Better homes for Edinburgh”, funded by the Scottish Executive. The Tenant Information Service carried out and publicised its independent reviews and research.

The initiative to transfer the council's housing stock came from the government's policy to write of historic debts if council housing is privatised.
The City of Edinburgh accumulated £310 million pounds because of the building of council houses: “at the moment 40p of every pound of rent money is paying back the intrests on the loans taken out in the past” (DCH, our future leaflet),

Further, “this [the stock transfer] will unlock a £2 billion investment to make improvements to tenants' homes, 10 000 extra new homes can be built and major regeneration can take place in key areas of the city." (Better homes for Edinburgh, Pennywell newsletter)

Councillor Sheila Gilmore states:
“The transfer will bring the biggest amount of money for housing in Edinburgh since the first council homes were built in our city.” (letter 30.November)

However, according to Brian Dillon, a council house tenant, the investment of the £2 billions mentioned is build on creating massive debts:
“They are not telling us that £1.3 billion of that is loans from private banks who demand higher intrest rates - rates your rent money will have to pay for. “ (Unison Scotland, Defend Edinburgh's Housing)

The promises of “lower rents, better homes, more homes, better neighbourhoods, keeping promises” as advertised by the Better homes for Edinburgh PR campaign has already been disputed by the Tenants Information Service revealing the budget for major promises, such as “safe and clean neighbourhoods” and for planned regeneration projects is not accounted for in CEHA's business plan.

Campaigners countered the PR campaign by pointing out past experiences of stock transfers, such as in Glasgow, resulted in “higher rents and charges, less security, more evictions, no accountability, more homeless.”

If the council house tenants vote “yes”, the 23 000 council houses will be sold off to CEHA at a price each of £900, according to the North Edinburgh News, despite ex-council flats in Dumbiedykes, Holyrood, holding now a market value of £100000, as advertised in The Scotsman.

---

Bibliography

  1. Unison Scotland: “Defend Edinburgh's Housing”, leaflet
  2. Tenants Information Service; “Tenants News”, Issue One/October 2005, leaflet
  3. Tenants Information Service; “Tenants News”, Issue Two/October 2005, 8 Din A4 pages pamphlet
  4. Tenants Information Service; “Tenants News”, Issue Three/November 2005, 8 Din A4 pages pamphlet
  5. Defend Council Housing, “Hands off our homes”, Edinburgh Against Stock Transfer Campaign, leaflet
  6. Defend Council Housing, “our future - privatisation of the Health Service, schools, Water and now our homes”, Stock Transfer Information Group
  7. Defend Council Housing, “If you don't know, vote no”, leaflet
  8. The City of Edinburgh Council, “Capital Tenant North”, Issue 3, Autumn 2005
  9. Better homes for Edinburgh, Issue 08, August 2005, “Taking to the road”
  10. Better homes for Edinburgh, Issue 09, September 2005, “Coming to a street near you”
  11. Better homes for Edinburgh, Issue 10, October 2005, “See how housing transfer could benefit you”
  12. Better homes for Edinburgh, Issue 11, November 2005, “It's time to use your vote”
  13. Better homes for Edinburgh, Pennywell Newsletter,
  14. Better homes for Edinburgh, “Demonstration Blocks”
  15. City of Edinburgh Council, letter from Councillor Sheila Gilmore, 17.11.2005
  16. City of Edinburgh Council, letter from Councillor Sheila Gilmore, 30.11.2005
  17. North Edinburgh News, November 2005, including
    • letter to the editor from Councillor Sheila Gilmore, Executive Member for Community Safety and Housing, “Councillor Gilmore urges you to vote”,
    • letter to the editor from Mark Turley, Director of Housing, “Response to questions on housing transfer"
    • letter to the editor from tenant W. Sutherland, “All the Answers”
    • letter to the editor from tenant T. Duff, “Something has to change”
    • letter to the editor from Louise Donnachie, Chair of WAGRAG, “Who's listening”
    • article, page 16, “Stock Transfer battle nearing final round”
    • article, page 16, "Stock transfer and repairs”, Jenni Marrow, Edinburgh Against Stock Transfer
  18. North Edinburgh News, December 2005, including
    • letter to the editor, kept anonymous, “Vote Yes”
    • letter to the editor, Jeni Marrow (EA.S.T.) and Charlotte Fletcher (S.T.I.G.)
    • article, page 14, “Edinburgh's tenants set to vote on housing transfer”
    • article, page 6, “Drylaw 'no' to more housing development”
    • article, page 15, “Stock Transfer D Day Looms”
    • article, page 15, “Have-a-go hero faces eviction”
  19. letter from Sian Roberts, Electoral Reform Services
  20. Defend Council Housing: “reasons to reject privatization”, autumn 2005


Anarchobabe

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech