Tuesday, 10 July 2007

Glasgow Housing Crises Should Spark Wider Debate

Harry Frew UCATT Regional Secretary today responded to the impasse that is the secondary stage Transfer of GHA Housing to Local Housing Organisations by questioning the whole idea of large-scale housing stock transfer.

Mr Frew said: “At time of the initial stock transfer UCATT fought this and warned that this would lead to further problems down the line for the tenants of Glasgow.

Mr Frew made his comments after the decision in the Scottish parliament last week to block the “second stage transfers” of Glasgow Housing Association. The decision which was passed on the casting vote of the parliament’s presiding officer, after the first vote was deadlocked at 60:60 throw the future direction of the project into doubt.

As a result of chronic under investment into council housing throughout the 1980’s by the then Conservative government, cities like Glasgow suffered and housing became unfit for tenants.

The solution would have been to allow Glasgow City Council funding to refurbish and replace the housing and for council tenants to remain within the local authority. The people of Glasgow were told that the transfer was the only show in town, this was the only way Glasgow would receive funding and rejection would result in no improvement in funding. They transferred because they believed it was the only route to home improvements.

Now we have a situation where once again tenants are being promised the olive branch of secondary stage transfer as a way of upgrading their homes to standard.  This is outrageous when all tenants wanted was homes fit for their families to live in.”

Mr Frew, added: “UCATT welcomes the new approach to housing from the Labour government and hopes that council housing is fit for the hard working people of Glasgow as well as offering opportunities for sustainable skilled employment if our youngsters.