The council tenant vote on whether or not to transfer Caerphilly’s 10,980 council houses to a new social landlord could be delayed until next year.
Tenants were due to vote next month to transfer the homes to a new housing association called Castell Mynydd, but the independent tenants adviser (ITA) – appointed to oversee the process – has said it cannot make an informed in light of recent council revelations.
Last week Caerphilly County Borough Council revealed that it could match the £173 million needed to upgrade and maintain its properties to the Welsh Housing Quality Standard.
Until recently, the council had maintained the only way to get the housing up to scratch was to transfer the stock to a new social landlord to release Government funding.
Labour called for the extra work to be done into the funding, believing the council could match the funding without the transfer.
While the council could not achieve the WHQS until 2019 or 2020, compared to Castell Mynydd’s 2017, it could match its £173 million total spend over the next 30 years.
This information however was revealed after the offer document was agreed and sent to tenants. The offer document states the council will not be able to match the cash being injected by Castell Mynydd.
The ITA is writing to the Welsh Government to defer the vote.
Plaid Cymru councillors met on Tuesday night to discuss the situation.
Councillor Lyn Ackerman, cabinet member for public services and housing, said: “We will be meeting with Welsh Government officials to discuss how we communicate to tenants the date when the authority would be able to meet the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) in the event of a ‘no’ vote in next month’s vote on housing stock transfer.
“The council was originally asked the question of the WHQS by tenants in June but it was not answered at that time because it was withdrawn by tenants.
“The policy and resources committee was informed earlier this month that the council would be able to deliver the WHQS by 2019-20, compared to 2017 if the authority’s housing stock was transferred to a new social landlord following a ‘yes’ vote of tenants.
“The cabinet and council agreed to adjourn discussion until after the meeting with the Welsh Government so all the facts could be provided and an informed decision made.”
Cllr Gerald Jones, Labour’s finance spokesman, said: “Labour members have had to push hard to get this information in the public domain. Plaid Cymru has accused us of trying to frustrate democracy when in fact all we have asked for is that tenants have all the facts before they vote.
“Until now, the only information available has been about what the proposed new social landlord can provide, it is only right and proper that tenants have the full information about what the position would be if they vote to stay with the council.”
Fellow Labour councillor Keith Reynolds added: “It seems that the only difference between what the proposed landlord can provide to what the council can offer is the timescale.”
It appear interesting that both Labour and Plaid Cymru on the Caerphilly council agree on at least one issue.
It is a fact that Housing Associations, which operate in the Valleys, and elsewhere, have very little if any accountability to the public, and little to the tenants who rent from them, they operate as autonomous self interest `groups`, and, have very little or no transparency in the way they work, unlike Caerphilly Council who have to operate within statutory rules and guidelines, which are designed with the interest of all its citizens in mind, the Council are transparent and accountable in the way they currently operate, including their lettings policies, they have a responsibility to all the people they serve to ensure that those policies and procedures are open, transparent, and most of all that they operate in the interest of the people they are meant to serve.
When considering an application for housing, re-housing or transfer to more suitable accommodation from a new applicant or an existing tenant, Caerphilly Council have to take account a person’s disability, health needs, social and personal needs, and most of all they have to be transparent in that process, they have rules and regulation with which they have to work. And most important of all, each citizen us supposed to have an advocate in their local ward Councillor who can guide them through the application process if they need help, these Councillors will, or should, ensure that all the rules and processes which are in place to help an aid an applicant are considered in every case.
However, Housing Associations work in a very different way, they have few statutory rules which work in favour of applicants and existing tenants, most of the rules and regulation they work under are self imposed and modified to ease the process in favour of themselves when it comes to accountability and responsibility to tenants and applicants, they do not ensure that the rules apply equally to all citizens, because, they allow themselves the latitude within the processes to alter and modify them at will, and, I have read nothing in respect to the new Housing Association “ Castell Mynydd” Housing Association, established by Caerphilly CBC to take over its housing stock in the event of a vote by the tenants to ensure that undemocratic and sometimes unfair practice would alter should the vote be for transfer to these undemocratic groups.
Housing Associations utilise public funds, but call themselves `Private landlords`, particularly if a citizens tries to establish exactly how they operate and where the public money is spent, they are not subject to regulation when it comes to members of the public seeking information about their operations or about them. One such group, local to Caerphilly, which could under other circumstances itself be an alternative in the forthcoming ballot, has absolutely no policy to deal with the housing needs of its more venerable, ill and sick, handicapped and disabled tenants, who may require more suitable accommodation to that which they currently live in as a tenant of this Association, ( Not Castell Mynydd) in fact, there is evidence that they currently leave such decisions to employees who are allowed to apply a self interest test on such applicants, leaving the most venerable to suffer indignity and sometimes housing deprivation due to the subjective attitude and decisions of these individuals, and which `sully` a tenants Human Rights.
If Caerphilly Council are to follow the rules imposed upon it by the WAG and give its tenants an opportunity to vote on the transfer of its publicly owned, housing asset to one of these self interest groups, then everyone in the borough should have the same opportunity to vote on such a proposal, after all, each citizen of the Borough is a stakeholder and potential applicant for some sort of housing in the future.
Caerphilly Council tenants must be urged to vote for the Council to retain our public housing stock in the valley and not hand it over to potentially money grabbing, sycophantic, self interest, and parasitic surrogate groups with no public scrutiny over their methods and operations.
The recent vote taken by council tenants to remain with Caerphilly County Borough is a huge slap in the face for Plaid in Caerphilly, and in particular a damming indictment on the leadership of Cllr Alan Pritchard, who invested so much of his own personal political capital in securing a yes vote in favour of stock transfer. The result shows that tenants were not fooled by the tactics employed by Plaid, who accused Labour of trying to “frustrate democracy and falsely argued that the local authority was unable to borrow enough money to meet the Welsh Housing Quality Standard for 30 years from 2012. Plaid cannot dismiss this result and the implications it has for them. With turn out at 66.7% and 65.2 % in favour of staying with the council it is clear that Plaid have lost the confidence of tenants.