Published: 28th June 2001.
Letters to the Editor.
Dear Editor,
On Monday of this week, Paddington Churches Housing
Association, managing agents for troubled West Hampstead
Housing Association, organised a shareholders special
meeting which effectively moved WHHA into their housing
group, Genesis.
This was against the expressed wishes of an important
sector of tenants who have not been consulted in any way.
The Housing Corporation's Section D8 (Performance Standards)
has simply been ignored. PCHA moved in during February, by
the end of which the number of shareholders, which usually
increases by three or four a year, had risen from 55 to 76,
the 21 new shareholders being entirely PCHA board members
and associates.This move guarantees PCHA success with any
move that they may now wish to make, and allegedly takes
gerrymandering up to entirely new levels undreamed of by
Governor Gerry all those years ago.
PCHA must wonder why WHHA tenants are so hostile to
them.The reason is that the first five people to be handled
by them have been treated like four ounces of chopped liver.
In the past, houses which do not need renovating have been
renovated, one bed flats have been turned into family homes
whilst family homes are turned into one bed flats, with
people ripped out of their communities in order to boost
their already satisfactory assets worth around £1bn.
Neither PCHA nor WHHA have ever denied these statements nor
expressed any regret - still less any apology.
www.whhashortlife.co.uk contains, on the net, a write up
of Monday's meeting which exploited to the full the
allegedly disastrous consequencies to tenants of
shareholders not passing the resolution and WHHA entering
Genesis. But what would have happened if the resolution had
been voted out? The Corporation would have ended up in deep
trouble because it is responsible for the whole sorry
debacle. It would have had no choice but to step in again.
How has the Housing Corporation, who has always had a
regulation accountant right at the heart of WHHA finances,
allowed such a situation to develop over so many years? How
did the auditors let WHHA almost hit insolvency in the
autumn? And how will the Corporation's boss, the National
Audit Office, respond to the announcement at the S.G.M. that
four months on, PCHA still has not the foggiest idea how
much money WHHA owes. In fact, under these conditions, how
can WHHA be governable?
Tenants are grateful for the safety associated with Corgi
approved gas fitters. Maybe Messrs Corgi could be prevailed
upon to set up a certification scheme for quangos and
registered social landlords.
Yours sincerely,