The opposition Labour group on Caerphilly County Borough Council has said it will improve council housing faster if it wins May’s local election.
On Friday, it was announced tenants had voted to remain with the council in a ballot over homes transfer.
Tenants were voting on a proposal for the homes to transfer to the new, not-for-profit, Community Housing Mutual, Castell Mynydd.
In the secret ballot, 66.7% of tenants voted, 65.2% were against and 34.8% in favour of the transfer proposal.
Labour’s housing spokesman Cllr David Poole said: “Now that the tenants have spoken loud and clear, following May’s elections, a new Labour-led council will work with tenants and housing staff to improve the housing stock and will set about getting 82% of the homes up to the required standard by 2017, the same time as proposed by the Castell Mynydd, the alternative social landlord.
“Under the council’s amended offer document, the WHQS will be fully met by 2019/20 financial year.”
On Monday, Plaid Cymru pledged to “drive up council housing quality” following the ‘no’ vote and said publishing an action plan was now a top priority.
Voting on the plan to transfer the council’s 10,980 houses had been due to take place in November 2011 but was delayed.
In October 2011, 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 – but that it would need a further two years to do so.
The revelation that the council could afford the changes to its homes was forced by Labour councillors.
Labour group leader Cllr Harry Andrews welcomed the decision of the vote and said: “This is good news for council tenants. We had to fight to get all of the relevant information to tenants in the face of Plaid Cymru’s unwillingness to give tenants the full facts. Now tenants have clearly expressed a view that they want an elected administration to take responsibility for improvements.”
Whoever wins the May Local Government Election will have to preserve and improve Caerphilly`s social housing stock, and, not just in the interest of the current tenants of Council houses, but in the interest of all those citizens of the borough who will follow and who will have a need for an affordable roof over their heads.
Housing Associations who currently `feed` some of the housing needs in the Borough have consistently and increasingly demonstrated they are `not fit for purpose`, they ignore the needs of the most vunerable, the aged, the disabled, and particularly those who`s physical needs alter and who may require consideration to more suitable accommodation than that which they occupy, they have few or no staff qualified to assess the needs of the vunerable, relying on Caerphilly council`s services to do so, and even then they apply their own subjective interpretations to the experts advice.
Why on earth Plaid Cymru failed to properly proportion the information they originally prepared in the ballot, slanted for a yes vote, is beyond me, unless of course they, as a party, always wanted to rid the Caerphilly citizens of this civic asset, but now the people have spoken it is difficult to `trust` the future of our social housing stock to Plaid Cymru, but, whoever wins the election will be under intense scrutiny on these issues.
So all in all the sooner the winners of the May Council elections get a grip the better, and the current record on this issue shows that to be Labour.
So why didnt the Labour Party do it when they were in power in the past?.Willthis promise be as good as their promise to improve the hospital provision in the Borough, which ended up by closing the Miners and opening a cottage hospital, as one of your other contributors said recently its a bit Orwellian less means more.