Now the Glasgow group, which has previously forced Scotland’s largest council into a series of embarrassing U-turns, claims authorities have failed to deal with the blight that can caused by private landlords, with enforcement practically non-existent.

Plans include fostering links with activists in large urban centres such as Edinburgh, Stirling, Dundee and Aberdeen for a national network to increase pressure on the Government and include specialist housing courts and a regulator for the sector.

The campaign will be launched at a meeting next Tuesday in Glasgow, addressing grievances including:

• Antisocial behaviour and neighbour nuisance often associated with privately rented flats and houses and the failure of many landlords and the authorities to deal with it;
• The failure of absentee and rogue landlords and agents in dealing with upkeep and repairs in tenements and other flat types and the limited enforcement powers to clamp down on it;
• The lack of regulation and resources to enforce House in Multiple Occupation, planning and licensing law breaches, absence of enforcement against those who do not sign up to the Landlord Registration Scheme and difficulty in successfully prosecuting rogue landlords;
• The impact on property values, concerns about the “fit and properness” of many landlords and the catastrophic effect transient residents are having on increased numbers of communities.

Bill Fraser, a community councillor in Pollokshields, helped halt the Go-Ape proposal and is one of the architects of the new campaign.

He said: “If absentee landlords fail to control feral tenants, as they are legally obliged to do, noise, lack of repairs and anti-social behaviour make life a misery for normal families.

“The physical quality of buildings deteriorates, rubbish piles up and the character of the neighbourhood changes from a community with a shared interest in their environment to a transient area where many residents have no stake in its cohesion.

“A minority of the current generation of landlords, who often live in the affluent suburbs or abroad, regards property as simply a business and fails to respect an area’s character or its residents.”

—

Meet on Tuesday, 6th December, 7.00pm

Elim Church
42 Inglefield St
Govanhill
G42 7AT

Hamiltonhill Action Group Programme

* No to forcing people out of their homes. Yes to investment.

* A dry warm home for all.

* A safe, secure community.

* Facilities for children and families must be kept and improved.

* Our homes and our surroundings should be a pleasant place to be.

* Our rents must be affordable, for all of us.

* This is our community. We demand respect!

Having publicised their situation throughout and beyond Glasgow, Hamiltonhill Action Group have now gained the support of the Scottish Tenants Organisation as well as neighbouring estates giving further signs of solidarity and support. The Action Group are holding a weekly stall immediately outside GHA headquarters and have made contact with several other resident’s groups in Glasgow. There have also been a large number of unaffiliated social housing residents coming up to the stall to share stories and generally showing GHA that Glasgow is supporting the campaign for better social housing, whether it is in Possil, Parkhead or Pollokshields.

Since putting in a formal request to GHA for a timetable of works to install Secured By Design steel security doors in Hamiltonhill, the Hamiltonhill Action Group have now escalated the campaign, since GHA have chosen to completely ignore both the request and complaint logged by the residents via the Action Group.

Over a month has passed since the Action Group registered their official request but GHA has been deathly silent despite follow up correspondence from the Group and residents. Even according to their own agenda and targets of responding to resident’s requests and correspondence the GHA have failed. Considering a colossal 50% of the budget is spent on administration, surely it can’t be an issue of not having enough people to answer the phones?!

GHA have shown themselves to be unconcerned for their tenants health and safety, consistently ignoring demands for investment to be made to improve the quality of social housing in the area. However, Hamiltonhill has been subject to a systematic programme of neglect by GHA and Glasgow City Council, prior to it being earmarked for demolition in 2008 and as a local resident said:-

“We have stayed here 9 years, and our door always opens when you press the service button, at any time. They don’t think there is anything wrong with that.”

Having publicised their situation throughout and beyond Glasgow, Hamiltonhill Action Group have now gained the support of the Scottish Tenants Organisation as well as neighbouring estates giving further signs of solidarity and support. The Action Group are holding a weekly stall immediately outside GHA headquarters and have made contact with several other resident’s groups in Glasgow. There have also been a large number of unaffiliated social housing residents coming up to the stall to share stories and generally showing GHA that Glasgow is supporting the campaign for better social housing, whether it is in Possil, Parkhead or Pollokshields.

The two groups have called a national demonstration on the 24^th of September in Glasgow to show that the people of Scotland want and are in need of safe, secure, dry and affordable social housing and demand respect for their communities and themselves from the people who are meant to be working for them.

(syndicated from Scottish Tenants Organisation)

By scottishtenant

Houses await demolition: a neighbourhood in limbo.

Backed by the Scottish Tenants Organisation.

In support of tenants in Hamiltonhill fighting for investment in their community.

National Demonstration.  Thurs, 24th Sept.

–

The story was broken to the public at large by the Burgh Angel community newspaper in Glasgow this week, that tenants in Hamiltonhill have been fighting for investment to improve security and safety in the scheme.  The Hamiltonhill Action Group is demanding that the GHA fit steel doors to closes in the scheme, as a means of improving the safety and security on the scheme.

Burgh Angel Story: Drawing Steel From Granite; Hamiltonhill Hits Back

[Pdf file]

Tenants in the area have published a manifesto.  The seven point programme published by the Action Group, lists the following objectives of the group:-

Hamiltonhill Action Group Programme

* No to forcing people out of their homes.  Yes to investment.
* A dry warm home for all.
* A safe, secure community.
* Facilities for children and families must be kept and improved.
* Our homes and our surroundings should be a pleasant place to be.
* Our rents must be affordable, for all of us.
* This is our community.  We demand respect!

Have we became such an unequal society that demands such as these are not to be met?

The STO has endorsed requests from local tenants in the area to act on this issue.  We are therefore calling for a national demonstration.  In the past few months the GHA – the huge and unaccountable stock transfer landlord, whose actions in pursuing rapacious demolitions (more than 20,000 in 7 years; one quarter of its initial stock)  in recent years has led in part to the shock news published by Shelter Scotland, that the availability of social housing was at an all time low.  Hamiltonhill is another area set aside for demolition.  That means it has seen massive underinvestment, as all non-essential investment works have been halted.  Hamiltonhill has been in this position of limbo for years.

Isn’t it time that something changed?

Tenants and the STO are now calling a national demonstration, on the 24th of September, to demand investment in public sector housing.

• We demand steel doors for Hamiltonhill.  We demand real investment.
• We demand an end to unnecessary demolitions.
• We demand an end to the failed policy of stock transfer.
• We demand an end to write to buy.  We demand debt write-off for local authorities, to give council a level playing field.
• We demand that public sector housing is an option of choice.  We demand respect, in Hamiltonhill, across Scotland.

Let’s say it loud and clear, “Scotland’s for Council Housing!”

See you on Thursday the 24th of September, in Glasgow.

[Details to follow soon.  Please get in touch if you hope to attend: agahst2003[AT]hotmail.com, hamiltonhillaction[AT]googlemail.com]

Hamiltonhill demands secure entry steel doors for its closes.

“i am very frightened as a single female living with my dog [...] i’m
frightened of what will happen next. my car was deemed economically
unsalvageable [...]  I do not have the freedom i used to have and the
self-knowing that i have my car, my time machine!! i am stuck in the
house all the time with a dog that needs to release her built up
energy, and its not fair on either of us as i’ve been told if i ever
have my car back in the street or ANY car, the junkies will destroy
it.  I was told this to my face and recently was put in hospital by
this person” (from an email to the Action Group)

In a recent survey conducted by the Hamiltonhill Action Group 25 of
the areas 50 or so close doors were found to have been broken into and
in need of repair.

When the issue was raised with the landlord, prompt action ensued.
The landlord tried to co-opt the action group immediately.

“We do have community representatives on our management committee who
worked hard for the local residents in the area.  We are always
looking for local champions to join, so you would be more than welcome
to come along.”

The GHA raised a repair line item for 17 close doors to be repaired,
after it checked out the survey’s findings.

Previously, before the Action Group demonstrated this dereliction of
duty from the landlord, GHA’s only interaction had been to remove our
literature from the many boarded up buildings in the neighbourhood.

Hamiltonhill, it was revealed in 2006 and 2007, has been the subject
of very large underspends of GHA cash allocated to the scheme for
routine repairs and maintenance.  It has not seen the investment seen
in other areas of the city, and tenants are routinely patronised with
the latest schemes being adopted to gradually demolish the homes in
the community.  Most recently (since the present plan of ‘phased
demolition’, over 5 years, was announced last autumn, before the
financial crash) tenants were informed the council suspected there may
be toxic waste beneath local’s houses.  A contemptuous map accompanied
the announcement of ‘investigations’ (which may of course have led to
the houses ‘needing to be demolished’), which had a large rectangle
surrounding newly-built private flats and terraced housing in the
centre of the scheme; apparently these homes had not been exposed to
the contamination.  (Before 1929, locals, many of whose families moved
to the area when the houses were built, confirm that the area had been
a rural farm.  It was never industrialised)

The present ‘phased demolition’ appears to have entered ‘phase
mothball’ since the recession ensured the lucrative private housing
this neighbourhood’s ‘land without a people’ is coveted for was
effectively ruled out for the foreseeable future.

For the past few months local residents, fed up of putting their lives
on hold, have been meeting to discuss how to make the area a better
place.

After a survey was conducted to determine what the neighbourhood’s
priorities were, a draft programme was drawn up.  At a meeting open to
all local residents the programme was endorsed unanimously.

—

Hamiltonhill Action Group Programme

* No to forcing people out of their homes.  Yes to investment.

* A dry warm home for all.

* A safe, secure community.

* Facilities for children and families must be kept and improved.

* Our homes and our surroundings should be a pleasant place to be.

* Our rents must be affordable, for all of us.

* This is our community.  We demand respect!

—

The Hamiltonhill of today can remember the Hamiltonhill that used to
be.  That Hamiltonhill would have no need of such a programme.
Because people would have taken it for granted.  Now today, after
decades of neglect, residents are envisioning a better community.

Starting with new close doors.

As the Action Group noted to the GHA’s Chief Executive, Tahroub Zahran:-

“An essential part of making people feel safe in their homes and
community is to know that the entrance to their home is secure, that
there will be no people loitering in the close at night, and that fear
of opportunist housebreaking will not be a constant concern.

As GHA’s own studies have concluded
(http://www.glasgowhomes.org/content/default.asp?page=s25_1&newsid=1663&newsType=)
such doors have been shown to cut housebreaking by up to 75%.

We note that in recent years, Hamiltonhill has been the subject of
persistent underspends of the budget (two reports released from the
LHO, before the recent LHO reorganisation, demonstrate this); we are
therefore seeking to see some much needed investment deliver some much
needed safety to tenants in our neighbourhood.

We trust that GHA will be keen to action this, as it has now become
the settled will of tenants in the area.  We therefore are looking for
a timetable for this commitment to be published to tenants in the
area, before the end of August.”

HOW YOU CAN HELP

The GHA has in the past proven very reluctant to spend money when
tenants have asked for it.  We will need to exert pressure to win our
demands.  You can help by volunteering to write letters and phone the
GHA to express your disquiet at the way they are ignoring tenants in
Hamiltonill, when the time comes to do so.

We are asking for you now to get in touch with us TODAY, if you are
able to help out in this way.

If you are able to help in other ways, please also get in touch with us.

hamiltonhillaction@googlemail.com | 07526113198

Together all our neighbourhoods are stronger.  Together, we can
finally win respect for working people.

The Creativity Fix is most insidious when it assumes that every city can win in the battle for talent and growth. Creativity scripts, however, are better understood as “zero-sum” urban strategies constituted within the context of uneven urban growth patterns in an increasingly polarized framework of inter-city competition.

[...]

Glasgow’s adherence to the creativity script is merely another  soft policy option for compliant forms of corporate welfare, regressive social redistribution and ‘trickle-up’ economics. In fact, precisely the same forms of compliance that has allowed neoliberal forms of capitalism to lead us into the deepest global recession since the 1930s.

More at: http://variant.org.uk/34texts/mechantcity34.html

PDF (from magazine): http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue34/merchant34.pdf

Maryhill Burgh Meeting: The financial crisis – how’s it going to affect us in Maryhill.
A public meeting for Maryhill and beyond: Woodside Halls, 7:30PM, Wednesday the 26th of November
Tenants, Homeowners, Ratespayers, Claimants, Refugees, Migrants: ALL WELCOME
PUBLIC MEETING: for the whole community

MAP: Woodside Halls

• * Your Home
• * Your Rent
• * Your Council Services
• * Your Repairs
• * Your Refuse Collection
• * Your Childcare
• * Your Kids Play Facilities
• * Your Job
• * Your Benefits
• * Your Community Safety
• * Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour

YOUR RIGHT TO HAVE A SAY!

How a crisis in the world’s financial markets is going to hurt Maryhill, is going to hurt our services, raise our rents, hurt our pockets, and damage our community, and what we can do together in Maryhill to stop this happening.

A public meeting for Maryhill and beyond: Woodside Halls, 7:30PM, Wednesday the 26th of November

Come along, and hear what can be done. Have your say!

Meeting organised by:-

The Burgh Angel – community newspaper
The IWW – independent trade union

–
Speakers include: IWW, Burgh Angel, London Coalition Against Poverty, and independent economists

“City parks to invite private companies to join in shake-up”

"625 car parking spaces on football grounds in Victoria Park"

"Nightclub in Botanical Gardens"

"Expensive adventure playground in Pollok Park & more car parks"

"Park toilets turned into chic cafe Kelvingrove"

"Building school in park"

"Save our schools"

"Community Bandstand ignored Kelvingrove"

"Park creeping"

"Consulted Remember?"

Read... http://commongoodwatch.wordpress.com/

"Mr Booth admitted that during the review, the possibility of the parks
being run by an external organisation was considered. However, the option
was dismissed amid fears that private contractors may charge for some of
the facilities which are currently free"...

---------------------------

-- 

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