This is most un-Ford-tunate

There was traditional East End rebellion in the air on Saturday, as over 100 residents of Old Ford Housing Association gathered at St Paul’s Church in St Stephen’s Road to ask what had gone wrong with their housing association.

As one resident pointed out, residents in Bow had first come together some 25 years ago to discuss what could be done about the terrible state of the repairs service in what were then Council properties. A Housing Action Trust (HAT) was set up in the 1990s In 2005, HAT properties joined the Parkside Estates in Old Ford Housing Association – a stock transfer which was part of the Council’s “Housing Choice” process. The transfer was accompanied by promises that Old Ford would be a locally managed and locally accountable landlord.

As Saturday’s meeting, several residents said that they had, initially, seen improvements in services. Those residents who were on the HAT Board and then on Old Ford’s Board worked hard for fellow residents and felt they were getting somewhere – but then things began to go wrong. Eventually Old Ford Housing Association became part of Circle Housing Association and decisions intended to improve housing management, particularly repairs, had the opposite effect.

Residents had to appeal to the Homes & Communities Agency, which regulates housing associations. It intervened and ordered Circle to change its repairs contractor. Again, this brought some improvement – but this was short lived. Now Old Ford residents are now finding out the downside of stock transfer – as other Tower Hamlets residents have found out before them. Circle Housing Association is re-organising itself – and is trying to get Old Ford Housing Association to dissolve, so that Old Ford residents would have no special local services but would just be one of many thousand tenants of Circle.

Saturday’s meeting was called by Cllr Marc Francis, who is so furious at Circle’s cavalier attitude that he has resigned from the Old Ford Housing Association Board and is now working with residents to get a better deal.

Local resident Chris Toms, a former member of the HAT Board and the Old Ford Board in its early days, told the meeting that these organisations had worked well with their resident majorities. However, since Old Ford chose to form a partnership with Circle Housing Association, things had gone downhill. He stressed how the residents on the Board had been elected by their fellow residents – but Circle had changed all that, preferring to select which residents served on the Board themselves.

Christine, a resident of Lefevre Walk, spoke about how the Walk had been rebuilt, with government funds – which had seen a great improvement. However, since Circle had muscled in on Old Ford, things had gone downhill again. Residents now had no way to influence what happened with their homes and it felt like they were living on a privately owned estate, so remote was the landlord.

John, a local resident who had also been heavily involved in stock transfer and working to get a better deal for residents, spoke movingly about how Old Ford Housing Association had broken all the promises made to residents before transfer. He appealed to all residents present to stand up and be counted “ for the sake of everyone on all the estates”.

Kay Kelleher told the meeting that she was a Council Tenant who had been on the HAT Board and then the Old Ford Board. She had stood down from the latter because she believed she was on the Board to represent residents, not to represent the Circle Housing Group.

Jackie said that she had been a member of the HAT Board and had now returned to the Old Ford Board. She remembered how, in the early days, people who had made mistakes had been moved on – but now big mistakes were made and the people who made them just stayed in post, ready to make more mistakes. Residents had formed their own housing association, naming it themselves, because they wanted to be part of a small, local group. She was totally opposed to the merger with Circle and wanted residents to form a campaign group to stop it.

Cllr Marc Francis was supported at the meeting by Cllrs Rachel Blake and Josh Peck. Cllr Peck acknowledged that the Government was putting pressure on smaller housing associations to merge. However, Circle Housing Group had given no good reason why Old Ford should merge with it. Circle had said the merger would make them a much larger body, but had said nothing about how – or if – the merger would improve services for residents. He told residents that Circle said they got more complaints from the Old Ford area than from the rest of their London properties put together – and he felt that the number of complaints had increased as the level of involvement of residents had been decreased by the landlord.

Cllr Rachel Blake thanked residents for coming out to a meeting on a cold and rainy Saturday. She noted that both tenants and leaseholders were present and stressed that all residents were experiencing problems. She thought it was sad that residents’ dreams had been dashed and, like Cllr Peck, thought Circle’s desire to merge with Old Ford was driven by their desire to get bigger rather than to improve services.

Sadly, residents at Old Ford Housing Association are not the first to experience problems with the landlords to which their stock was transferred – and not the first to see the promises which encouraged them to agree to transfer to be broken. Sadly, Cllrs Francis, Blake and Peck are not the first local councillors who have had to grapple with the fallout from stock transfer. What, if anything, can be retrieved for residents from this situation remains to be seen.

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