“shortlife properties are not social housing” - how can that be since many co-ops took nominations from the waiting list and housed vulnerable people?!
- “offered a chance to jump the housing queue”- but we don’t have to displace people – we have homes, maybe the places we don’t take on the waiting list can be used by families that are now being housed in B&Bs by Lambeth!
- “become tenants of a council property of their choice” – CBL is a lottery not a choice, and one hampered by all sorts of inconsistencies
- “Lambeth’s failure to tackle this issue in the past” including various Labour administrations, meanwhile Labour councillors have previously supported our case for permanency and various deals were proposed but the council pulled out – ultimately stable communities, praised by current Labour councillors for giving permancy to the area, have built up, Cllr Robbins can’t expect to just sweep that aside with no regard for social fabric
- “Lambeth not alone in having to deal with shortlife properties” – but historically has had the most and left them the longest and effecting a purge is no way to deal with this
- “75 residents taking up council tenancies in the last year alone” – many having no choice because of paying for a legal defence, many have had problems with moving or not received suitable offers, some have been evicted or are on the point of eviction
“uneconomical to spend money on bringing back properties up to a habitable standard” - many already are of this standard and no assessment has been made of these houses anyway as the council have had nothing to do with them for 40 years, besides we have offered a solution that means any necessary refurb would be done at no cost to the council and also applied to empty homes of which Lambeth has so many
“investing money in housing and an much needed extra school places” – these houses being sold off and are consequently lost social housing units and the money is going into a general pot, widely disseminated and not creating new homes as our super co-op would
“willing to work with residents…” - reiterating an offer made to us after the super co-op agenda was ditched by the council two days before a meeting!
“their confidence in the council is low…mediate through a third party” – hardly surprising after all the above, being driven to bankruptcy to defend a home you have maintained,etc and having super co-op plan ignored as if it never existed