Hands off our housing

Brighton

Hands off our housing

AFTER MANY years of delays, obfuscations, U-turns and about-turns,
Brighton and Hove council is finally going to decide on the future of
council housing locally.

Sean Figg

It had originally been the council’s preference to set up an Arms
Length Management Organisation (ALMO). This is a two-stage privatisation
process where only the management of council homes is privatised
initially.

It now looks more likely that the council is going to favour a full
transfer of the housing stock to a housing association or other such
private concern. In other places where this has happened tenancies are
changed, rents raised and democratic accountability lost. This
privatisation process is national government policy.

In Brighton & Hove, the Socialist Party has been working with the
Defend Council Housing campaign to try and stop the council. During the
general election Brighton Socialist Party led our campaign with the
council housing issue, talking to hundreds of tenants and collecting
hundreds of names on petitions protesting the council’s plans.

On count night our candidate attempted to present the petition to the
winning Labour candidate – Des Turner – who refused to accept them.

Our work during the election laid an excellent basis for building the
campaign to save council housing in Brighton & Hove. We are doing
stalls in the council estates and re-visiting tenants we discussed with
during the election to mobilise people for a lobby of the council on 21
July when the decision is being taken.

We have seen massive opposition from tenants to any form of
privatisation of their homes. On one stall, we had more people lining up
to sign petitions and take leaflets than we could manage to talk to!

Demand "the fourth option" – continued public ownership and
increased investment from central government to improve and expand
council housing.