Cllr Golds is now giving his report. He says that the public asking questions were answering prepared questions which had been put in to support a THF General Election candidate, but THF had not had the confidence to stand. He threatened that the Tories would use a quote from Mayor Rahman saying he hoped Labour would form the new Government on their own literature, up and down the country. He criticised the plans for the new Town Hall. He referred to the Weekly Desh press release about the multi-faith burial ground.
We have now moved to councillors’ questions to councillors. Poor Cllr Sirajul Islam has asked the Mayor to support the Labour Party’s leaseholder campaign. Cllr Rabina Khan is verbally taking him apart, pointing out Labour ‘s poor record in providing affordable housing. Cllr Islam gets a supplementary. He is quoting problems leaseholders have with Tower Hamlets Homes, it seems. One can only wonder why Labour doesn’t campaign for a fair deal for tenants – the tenants whom they sold off to the objectionable social landlords. Cllr Khan is pointing out that Labour has a poor record on dealing with leaseholder issues in THH.
Sure enough, as Cllr Khan predicted, Cllr John Pearce has now proposed that the Council takes a motion on Labour’s leaseholder campaign. Cllr Pearce is moving the motion: he thanks leaseholders for being at the Council. He says that leaseholders have been in torment about how dreadful THH has been: but, he alleges, the Mayor is not listening. He is making an impassioned speech about how tough life is for leaseholders under the Mayor’s “decent homes” work – leaseholders have suffered dreadfully. (There are even more tenants who have suffered – but Cllr Pearce seems not to be concerned about their suffering.) Goodness, the accusations are flying thick and fast. He says the Mayor has been “asleep at the wheel”. He is going on and on: this is really over the top.
Cllr Rachel Blake is going to second the motion, but it is actually Cllr Whitelock who is speaking. She is proud of Labour’s legacy on Decent Homes, but the major works is poor quality and THH has not managed it well. Some of her Park View leaseholders are here: she has listed things they have been charged for, which clearly are work which could not have been carried out. However, things like the ones she has listed are things which tenants on other estates (tenants whom Labour sold off to housing associations) have suffered and have had to pay for. Why is Labour making such an issue of leaseholders, without supporting tenants too?
Cllr Peter Golds pointed out that he had encountered constituents with similar problems. He has gone on to criticise the Mayor for the administration of Tower Hamlets Homes. He says that ALMOs should be arms-length, but actually the Mayor has reduced the size of the Board (in fact, it is the Government’s HCA which is working for smaller Boards) and there is a majority of Tower Hamlets First supporters on the Board. This is followed by the usual allegation that the Mayor doesn’t care about people….
Now we have Cllr Shahed Ali. He points out that leaseholders who buy their properties do have to pay for improvements, though of course he agrees they should not be ripped off. He was then heckled, with the Tories suggested he had right to buyed his own home, which he denied. He then pointed out many of the problems originated in stock transfer and that Labour had failed to put mechanisms in place when it set up the ALMO.
Cllr Rachel Saunders is now accusing THF of wasting poor people’s money. She admitted that she was a leaseholder. She pointed out that she has suffered from poor works on her estate, caused by bad management. She rubbished Cllr Khan’s reviews of leaseholder charges because on some estates works had already been done (which is not quite the same thing). She has accused THF (or Cllr Khan?) of destroying the governance of THH.
Cllr Oliur Rahman is on his feet now. He suggests that Cllr Golds should not be re-elected. He pointed out that the Mayor delivers on his promises – Labour just leaves a mess. He points out that THF councillors do serious casework with leaseholders and tenants who have problems; this is very different from setting up party political campaigns. He has suggested that Cllr Khan would make a better MP than Rushanara Ali, which has led to some uproar.
Cllr Sirajul Islam is speaking. He is quoting examples of leaseholders complaining to him about works done on their properties. Again, he has said nothing about how tenants suffer just as much as leaseholders do.
And now it is another THF Councillor, Cllr Ansar. He agrees that we need to improve local housing, but we also need a national focus on getting affordable housing: but Labour and the Tories blocked the Council discussing that at the last meeting, so all this is rather hypocritical. He is asking why the former Labour MPs in the borough did not work for leaseholder interests nationally.
Cllr Marc Francis says that works have began recently in Bow, so councillors there are just starting to experience some of these issues with leaseholders. He says that constituents are having to use Freedom of Information requests to find out what is going on. He describes a local estate where half a block is being improved and half is not: he gave an example of how THH told him work would not be done in a certain area, but in fact it was. He thought THH was trying to do too much too quickly. He supported the motion, but in particular he wanted more transparency.
Cllr Rabina Khan is now speaking: she has some amendments. She knew leaseholders had problems (as they had under Labour). She also pointed out that there should be differences between owner occupying leaseholders and leaseholders who owned a number of properties and were small scale landlords. She is pointing out examples of how she and the mayor had done a great deal of work to check up on contractors. She wanted to explore how to help leaseholders properly, as rash action could affect the HRA.
Cllr Saunders is moving a procedural motion to move to a vote as soon as Cllr Khan’s amendment has been heard and to extend the meeting by half an hour. There are groans.