We got left behind.

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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!

 

Action Group Escalates Campaign

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.

 

“For the right to live without fear” ; Hamiltonhill Residents Demand Some Respect

“For the right to live without fear”

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.

 

Reportback From Sighthill Meeting

Graham Campbell (Sighthill Tenant) writes: The Pinkston Tenants’ Association meeting in Sighthill on Monday 29th October went quite well in the end. Although it was attended by Paul Martin MSP, Springburn SNP Councillor Phil Greene and to my surprise (given I was chairing it!) two senior managers from the GHA – the first priority was what the tenants had to say about their housing. The GHA staff took reports of repairs needed and racial harassment occurring for one Zimbabwean asylum seeker resident who bravely spoke out and was supported by the tenants present from her church. It was the first time there had been a meeting including the misguided tenants who attended Compass/LHO’s so-called Consultative Forum – selected to exclude the PTA reps. These forum members have now had to recognise they need PTA as championed by Save Our Homes activists like myself and Elaine Ellis because the local Compass LHO has simply not “consulted” them for months after using them to gerrymander a yes vote for demolition from about 70 people at an open day in June 2006.

The GHA’s Director of Finance and Regeneration David Hastings responsible for housing stock (demolition) surveys and consultations began by explaining the GHA’s Housing Futures Assessment process and the difference between core stock which they want to keep and invest in – and stock for disposal i.e. demolition or handover to someone else. Hastings went out of his way to assure us that no decision had yet been made by GHA Board (which contains several high-rise residents including apparently its chair Sandra Forsythe) about Sighthill but that there was a deadline April-September 2008 but he hoped it would be much sooner than April.

In answer to tenants’ questions Bill Munsie (chair of what GHA calls Local shared housing services for north Glasgow) went even further and said that even if the decision by the GHA Board was to demolish – it would be ’some years’ (i.e. at least 5-10 years) before it actually happened. In the meantime some “holding investment” in the flats could still take place so that they are up to standard during the regeneration process.

For once the GHA people seemed to really listen to our sound arguments for the future sustainability of our flats, the spurious nature of Compass LHO consultations up to now; and the fact that even the GHA-funded GoWell mass health & population survey of 673 Sighthill residents (one of the 12 areas involved in this 10-year longitudinal surveys of 6,000 Glasgow residents on the impact of regeneration programmes) showed just 4% support for demolition with over 70% happy with their flats.

Some of the ex-forum members were very vocifierous in saying some Pinkston buildings should come down, criticising the damp and level of repairs needed. But they agreed that it was largely down to the anti-social behaviour of some tenants combined with chronic lack of maintenance and repairs by GHA that there lives were made unpleasant. When asked directly by me from the chair “if these were sorted would you stay in Sighthill? one of them said yes.

Once again the ODS consultants’ estimate for total refurbishment of £66 million was trotted out. This was hotly disputed as the exact real costs would be known to Compass/GHA based on the repairs records which landlords are obliged to keep for stock condition. In other words they know exactly how much each flat really needs and it certainly won’t amount to £66 million of refurb. The ODS/Compass 2006 stock condition survey which came up with the £55m figure was based on surveying just 2 flats (probably the ones in very poorest condition) in each double multi-block – just 12 flats overall)which they claimed would cost nearly £56,000 per flat!!

This was clearly nonsense since ODS were obviously assuming worst-case scenario for each flat when most flats are in good condition though need some work doing – they do not all need total refurb.

We know from other multies that a large part of water ingress comes form poor external cladding and roofing. Recent programmes for cladding similar buildings in Townhead and Edgefauld Rd, Springburn came in at between £1.5m and £2.5m per block. A maximum of £25million for all of Sighthill or just £10-15million if we’re talking Pinkston multies.

Demolition contractors had been appointed for Fountainwell multies and had held one local consultative meeting on October 21st 2007 aiming to complete the job during 2008.
In addition several tenants asked whatever happened to the new kitchens and bathrooms we were promised at stock transfer? Again the answer was dependent on whether Core investment or holding investment applied to Sighthill.

Paul Martin and Phil Greene seemed to be totally convinced now that the high flats do have a future and that a deal could and should be reached as to a mix of new build in Fountainwell and refurbished housing in Pinkston which keeps the existing Sighthill community together. Some older tenants asked if they would be guaranteed to return in the new build, but the GHA could not give that assurance because it would breach the equality of the housing points system to give preference based on seniority instead of on housing need. However the need for a written guaranteed right of return for existing tenants is one of the PTA’s key demands.

It was agreed to have a next PTA public meeting in early February 2008 with the same panel to report back on progress.

 

Another Community Victory!

“So often, community councils struggle hard to be listened to so we are pleased that combined community pressure has quashed this extremely insensitive and silly idea.”

 

Letter to the Herald – Wilton Street Tenement Collapse

John F. Crawford’s comment (Sep.4) adds to the extensive discussion in your columns of the nature and causes of the collapse of the wall in Wilton Street on Monday 27 August).   Many of your correspondents, and indeed your headline article and leader (August 29), have focused on problems in the maintenance of Scotland’s stone-built Victorian heritage.   As someone living  beside the devastated site in question, however, I wish to point to yet more disturbing issues.

First, it should be stressed that the collapsed wall was not a tenement gable-end but the already-weakened remnant end dividing wall of a terraced town house.   Secondly, a major new-build development project was being carried out on the adjoining gap site with, on the very day of the collapse, significant excavations close to the wall in question.

The local community is demanding a full and rigorous official inquiry, including  statutory investigations by the Health & Safety Executive.   This is because an aggressive development project, carried out adjacent to an old building in precarious condition, seemed to be a disaster waiting to happen.

Fortuitously, fatalities and serious injuries were avoided.   But I would urge Glasgow City Council to recognize this near-catastrophe as a wake-up call that should provoke serious examination of the fundamental lessons to be learnt for its future development policy and procedures.   One of these might well be greater restraint in its less discriminating efforts to cover green and leafy areas with concrete.  The next time, there may be blood as well ink on the Council’s hands!

 

Q&A about HMOs and Suscoms

In this short article, Bill Fraser of Suscoms, which has now affiliated to the GFTRO,  outlines what his organisation is active in:-

 

HOUSES IN MULTIPLE OCCUPATION (HMOs)

What is an HMO?

A House in Multiple Occupation is official-ese for rented accommodation where a number of unrelated people share the same house.

These properties are controlled by an HMO licensing system administered by the local authority; this was introduced in Glasgow in 1985 following the death of 3 students in a fire. The legislation covers health and safety but also has provision for ensuring that landlords pay towards maintenance and keep stairs and gardens tidy. There are minimum space standards for occupied rooms.

Sounds fine – what’s the problem?

Because there is a shortage of rented accommodation for single people, the number of HMOs has multiplied throughout Scotland. Originally seen as a problem in student areas, HMOs are now mushrooming in many neighbourhoods driven by demand from students as well as single immigrants.

Landlords have discovered that they can maximise income from rented accommodation by letting as an HMO – as much as three times the rent they can charge to a single family.

However, a lack of resources means that landlords often don’t apply for licences and don’t comply with safety standards. If they are caught, prosecution can take up to 18 months – if the Fiscal decides to proceed. When taken to court, sheriffs either admonish the landlord or give derisory fines. Even repeated prosecutions receive the same treatment.

How does this affect me?

HMOs form part of a community but when they become too numerous or the accommodation is of a poor standard they can disrupt the neighbourhood. Very often tenements, designed as single-family houses, are subdivided with no regard for the structure of the rest of the building. This leads to excessive noise and problems with services such as plumbing and drainage. Property prices are skewed; dwellings with an HMO licence can be worth up to £100,000 more than a similar single-family home.

In certain areas of Glasgow, unregulated property development has lead to tensions with the existing residents and difficulties in the provision of services such as schools.

You’re just a bunch of NIMBYs!

Not so – we believe in balanced communities with decent housing for all. The tenants of HMOs, very often poor and vulnerable, are caught up in a new Rachmanism where unscrupulous landlords refuse to comply with the law in pursuit of short-term gain.

The spiral of increased prices and anti-social behaviour means long-term residents leave and are replaced by more HMOs

So what can we do?

SUSCOMS (Sustainable Communities Scotland) is an informal organisation of concerned residents in Glasgow, Edinburgh & St Andrews which campaigns for specific HMO legislation at Holyrood. We have been lobbying MSPs, the Scottish Executive and giving evidence to the Communities Committee of the Scottish Parliament.

You can help by joining our campaign and asking your MSP:

 

• Do they plan to introduce legislation in parliament to make it essential to obtain planning consent before an application for a licence for HMO use can made?

• Will they so something about the 10 year rule? Illegal HMOs which escape detection for 10 years must be granted planning consent. Make proof of payment of tax the evidence required to gain planning status where 10 years of continuous use is claimed

• Will they make large fines mandatory for successful prosecutions of landlords who ignore the law?

• Will they undertake to look at the problems of HMOs and similar accommodation and to introduce early, specific legislation?

• Will they give powers of closure to HMO officers who find that landlords persistently operate without a licence?

• Will they include members of the communities most affected in any working group?

At a local level:

• Lobby your community council

• Complain in writing to the HMO unit of the Council, with a request to go to the Licensing Board about any HMO which is a nuisance or does not pay bills. Make sure you record all complaints and problems. Attend the licensing Board in person to speak to any objection. An objection to planning can include the difficulties of parking

• Keep a record and map of all HMOs – licensed or suspected

• Report any new unlicensed HMO to the Planning Department and ask for enforcement action to be taken.

SUSCOMS NEEDS YOU!

We would like to hear from anyone in Glasgow who has been affected by this problem. We need details of your experiences to help raise the profile of this issue.

Bill Fraser

Tel: 07775 832461

Fax: 0141-626 4235

E-mail: newfarci@gmail.com

 

Call to ditch Park plan for luxury flats

Call to ditch Park plan for luxury flats

“A PLEA was made to Scottish Executive ministers to stop controversial plans to build flats in a historic part of Glasgow.”

Or as a contributor to the Evening Times website writes about the article:-

The original development masterplan did not mass the site with 106 apartments and 6 houses. Nor did it have a horozontal roof line striking out at the highest point but a steped roof line. It did not have a copper roof but slate to compliment the existing. It had window fenestrations to compliment the existing terrace not ground to roof line unbroken triangular extrusions. The original masterplan did not have 115 cars accessing the site via the lane to the rear.

Whomever wrote this is NIMBYism is missing the point. Stuart Milnes proposed building is fine. It is however inappropriate for this site.

 

Haringey Community Action Video

Haringey Community Action Video

This new video deals with the Haringey Federation of Residents Associations, which is a federation in a London borough.  It is interesting however because it shows the potential of residents association federation to take action on a whole variety of issues.

The Glasgow Residents Network is trying to set up something along similar lines, at a conference later this Summer.

 

All Tomorrow’s Particks to Bomb Tesco site

PRESS RELEASE: Having sent the message to Tesco through a Mass Massage, All Tomorrow’s Particks are planning to bomb the proposed Tesco site.

Using seeds that represent the bio-diversity of Scotland, clay and soil (sourced locally) the group are inviting local residents to come together to make seed bombs before firing them into the site via a medieval style catapult.

 

 “During the Mass Massage event everyone filled out wish cards. A lot of people wanted to see more green space, possibly a park, community garden or city farm. So that’s what we’re going to make happen by planting hundreds of seeds on the site.” Explained Nic Green, spokesperson for the group. “It’s simple really, if this is what the community wants, why shouldn’t they have it?”

 

The group are inviting anyone who would prefer a green space over a monolithic multinational to come to Beith Street, behind Partick’s other supermarket – Morrisons at 3 pm, Sunday, June 17th where everyone has the chance to uproot Tesco plans and plant their own.

 

“This next month could be critical in the decision over the use of the site. We’ve heard that Glasgow City Council will be meeting shortly to push through a decision. But many of the people we have spoken to still feel that they haven’t had a say.”  Added Green.

 

A high resolution image is available at: http://www.alltomorrowsparticks.org/images/Dear-Green-Place.jpg