I’ve received a letter from the Crown Estate today together with a glossy document which basically summarises all the objections they’ve had to their proposal to sell their housing estates in London, including their homes here in Lee Green.

The document simply tells residents what they already know – that everyone with an ounce of sense is against their proposal!  They tell us that their board will consider in coming weeks whether to proceed with the proposal.  If they do so, and once they’ve selected a buyer, a further round of consultation will occur.  There’s no promise of a ballot though.

So, a reprieve for a little while, but still no sign that they will withdraw the proposal, and without a ballot, a further round of consultation isn’t worth much.

The sorry saga of the Crown Estate’s plans to sell off their homes in Lee Green and elsewhere in London rumbles on.

Using Freedom of Information requests, residents have discovered that plans to sell off their homes were being discussed a year before the Crown Estate launched their ‘consultation’.  The South London Press covered this on Friday.

On Saturday, I attended the residents’ protest outside the Crown Estate’s ‘drop in’ consultation at the Colfeian Sports Club.  It was good to see a huge turnout from residents, and also cross-party political support for their campaign against the sell off of their homes.  As I said on Saturday, this campaign isn’t party political, it’s about what’s right and wrong.

I’d encourage residents of the affected properties, and indeed those who live around them and are concerned by the proposals, to visit the www.ourhomesarenotforsale.co.uk website and use the suggestions there to make sure the Crown knows the strength of feeling locally.

Sven and I were up on Millbank Way and Cambridge Drive this morning.   The Crown Estate are proposing to sell-off their residential property estate, which includes properties in Lee Green, as well as others elsewhere in London.

That’s understandably caused a lot of concern to the tenants and leaseholders of Crown Estate properties in Lee Green.

The Crown Estate have said that the proposal only affects the ‘bricks and mortar’ – e.g. tenancies would remain in place.   However, they are exploring a variety of options – they say they want to sell to a ‘focused housing provider’, but admit this could be a private landlord or a social landlord (e.g. a housing association).  This is a very important distinction, as the sell-off would affect residents in different ways depending who the buyer is.

I have to say, I’d rather things stayed as they are, but if they are determined to sell-off these properties, then a housing association would be a safer option for the residents as their rent levels are regulated and services are subject to inspection and regulation.

The local Lib Dem team is asking residents to give us their views, and we’ll incorporate these into our official response to The Crown Estate.  If you’re an affected resident, do get in touch.

The Crown Estate are also running some drop-in sessions for residents who want to know more.  Details of these are in the brochure you should have received – or contact me for more info.

Update: residents now have a petition on the Number 10 website – you can join me and sign it here: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/crownresidents/ There’s also a campaign website online at http://www.ourhomesarenotforsale.co.uk/

The decent homes programme is a government scheme aimed at bringing social housing (council and housing association properties) up to a pretty minimal standard by the year 2010. Most councils have just got on and done this.  There’s government money available to do it, and there are several ways to achieve it – by transferring stock to a housing association (like at Leybridge Court), by a PFI (like in Brockley) or via what’s called an ‘Arms Length Management Organisation’ or ALMO.

Lewisham have gone for all three approaches – with different solutions in different areas.  I’ve been supportive of the Leybridge Court transfer, so I don’t at all come at this from a ‘let’s oppose everything the Council does’ angle.

However, the ALMO route has been fraught with difficulty.  The Council were late setting up Lewisham Homes, and it had an appalling start with a dreadful Audit Commission report on the set-up it inherited from the Council (something the Cabinet Member responsible has told me she’ll never forgive me for demanding a copy of!).  The Government won’t give Lewisham a penny for decent homes until they’re confident the organisation is in a fit state to spend it, and they define that standard as a ‘2 star’ award from the Audit Commission.

So far, that critical inspection has been delayed and delayed again, and far from all homes meeting the standard (as the Mayor promised tenants back in 2006), seven out of ten Lewisham Homes won’t meet the standard by 2010.  In fact, the number of non-decent council homes has increased since 2006 as kitchens and bathrooms have become life-expired.

The latest piece of bad news comes from Government.  Having got sick of waiting for Lewisham to get their act together, the Government has decided to spend the money allocated for our decent homes on something else.  So there’s now no money in the kitty to deliver decent homes, even if Lewisham did pull a rabbit out of the hat and get two stars.   The housing minister has said that money might be found in the next round of government spending – due in 2011 – but as we all know, there’ll be a general election by then, and he’s not in a position to promise that.

The Lib Dem group are really worried by this state of affairs, particularly as the Council has been very slow off the mark in waking up to this and doing something about it.  Their initial reaction was to deny there was a problem and say the money had been ‘delayed’ by six months.  Other Councils affected have launched a judicial  review, but Lewisham’s chosen not to take part in that.  So we tabled a motion for the last council  meeting on 24th September - noting our concerns and asking the Chair of Council to write to the Minister concerned, and for the Mayor to apologise to tenants through Lewisham Homes’ ‘Home’ magazine for their tenants.

Now, Council meetings in Lewisham begin at 7.30pm and end at 10pm, unless Council decides to continue.  As you can see from the agenda, the motion was the last item on the agenda of the September meeting.   So, when 10pm came round, we asked for the Council meeting to be extended so we could ensure we covered all the business.  Predictably, Labour councillors voted against, rather than have the motion discussed (I should add that they filibustered throughout the meeting to ensure that time ran out – one councillor listing the platforms at London Bridge station ‘Platform 1, platform 2, etc…)

So, we ensured our motion was the first one to be debated at last night’s council meeting.  What could go wrong?  Well, the Chair of the Labour Group decided to ask for the order of business to be changed, so that once again, our motion was last.  As a couple of opposition councillors weren’t present, the Labour group got their way, and the motion was once again relegated to the end of the agenda, and once again, they voted to close the meeting at 10pm.  That’s democracy, Lewisham Council style.

This is a really important issue that affects thousands of tenants across the borough. It needs to be discussed by their representatives, and not ignored because it’s politcally embarassing for the ruling clique.  Fortunately, there are now enough opposition councillors that we can call an emergency council meeting – so that’s exactly what we’ve done.

Why are Lewisham Labour so afraid of a debate?  I think their record on housing speaks for itself.

One event I was really sorry to miss while I was away were the celebrations to mark the transfer of Leybridge and Newstead Estates to new landlord Broomleigh.

The transfer had been some time in the making, with residents working with the Council for over three years to get the right deal for their estates.  As local councillors, we were strongly supportive of the transfer.  We knew residents were fed up with years of poor maintenance of their estates, and wanted a real change.  Residents worked extremely hard, first to find the right landlord for them, and then to make sure Broomleigh’s offer contained everything they wanted.

I’m proud to have played a small part campaigning for the transfer, and spoke at the Full Council meeting where we approved the transfer.  In particular, I wanted to thank a number of people – residents and staff at the Council and Broomleigh – who’ve worked really hard to make this happen.  They know who they are.

Though I wasn’t able to make it, my colleagues Paul and Pete were there, and are pictured with one of the new signs Broomleigh have already erected at Leybridge.

Of course, the transfer doesn’t stop residents approaching their councillors if they do have any problems with their housing, and I’ll continue to hold my monthly advice surgery at Leybridge Court.  Next one on the 21st November at 10am.

Hello from Vermont!  I’m currently in the States with my day job, looking at the award-winning Community Land Trust in Burlington, Vermont – the Champlain Housing Trust.

We’ve been looking at schemes like the one on the right – permanently affordable homes on land held in trust on behalf of the community. That particular scheme brought an abandoned corner store back into use as a commercial unit with two affordable apartments above it.

We’ve also been meeting with local politicians, including Senator Bernie Sanders, Mayor Bob Kiss and local councillors.  As a politics-and-housing geek, it doesn’t get much better than this..!

I’m back in Lee Green at the weekend, but in the meantime, I’ve got limited access to email so am keeping on top of Council work.  If there’s something urgent, though, you might want to contact Paul or Sven.