Hackney being sold to the highest bidder!
Andrew Robertson | 18.10.2001 01:08
A poster in the room of a secretary’s office in the town hall of Hackney reads, “If there’s a light on at the end of the tunnel, switch it off”.
Times are hard in the fourth poorest borough in England and the council has to raise money to balnce the books for last years budget deficit. Propeties disposals are the chosen method, something the residents of Hackney have not accepted.
For the first time since it’s inception, intervention powers under the 1999 local government act have been used by sending five draft directions to separate departments in the council, one of which requesting the council to take, “tough action to get the Council's budget back in balance”. This demand from government, has led the majority Labour council to take a drastic measure in trying to raise the money and have set up a "Property Disposal Programme (PDP), to raise an amount, shown in a recently leaked document; "There is a target of £70 million to be derived from capital receipts in the financial year 2001/2002...the council is identifying further properties for disposal towards the target of realising £70 million". The PDP, involves the selling of council ‘assets’ which is mainly achieved through a series of auctions, being held by property consultants Nelson Bakewell.
Although this particular policy was not a secret, the
amount of ‘assets’ for sale was, until a leaked document
landed in the hands of local activists called
'HackneyNot4Sale', which showed a list of 120 properties potentially in the firing line.
Since then they and other residents have taken various forms of action to highlight the disposal to the public. The first step was to squat a disused brokers shop in Stoke Newington, temporarily turning it into a spoof estate agents, with pictures and text of many of the properties adorning the windows for passers-by to view. Next was the occupation of the head offices of Nelson Bakewell, which had to close down the accounts department for an afternoon. The most recent attempt to prevent the PDP came when the first of four publicised auctions occured. Twelve properties in Hackney were for sale and one of the most contentious properties was a former Day Centre, which had been previously squatted by parents. Residents entered the auction and partook in false bidding, raising the price up to £920,000. In the end the Day nursery, 'Lot 64', was sold.
Currently at least 2,000 children are on a waiting list to get into nurseries in the borough, a point not lost on the protester who took the action. Preferring to remain anoynomous they said, “the council is selling off properties, which is not theirs, it belongs to the community,…it’s short term thinking, what are they going to do when all the assets are sold? They’ll still have the debts". According to Hackney spokesperson Ian Rathbone, the policy is not as effective as they would like, "Large amounts of money has already been raised from the selling of the assets but due to the property having to be made ready for sale the financial situation is becoming worse, the council’s spokesperson explained, “selling property is a short to medium term solution to the problem of getting cash. The re-evaluation programme is adding to our financial crisis this year, you start out at the beginning and you think right we’re going to make £20 million but in reality we haven’t seen it”.
For the first time since it’s inception, intervention powers under the 1999 local government act have been used by sending five draft directions to separate departments in the council, one of which requesting the council to take, “tough action to get the Council's budget back in balance”. This demand from government, has led the majority Labour council to take a drastic measure in trying to raise the money and have set up a "Property Disposal Programme (PDP), to raise an amount, shown in a recently leaked document; "There is a target of £70 million to be derived from capital receipts in the financial year 2001/2002...the council is identifying further properties for disposal towards the target of realising £70 million". The PDP, involves the selling of council ‘assets’ which is mainly achieved through a series of auctions, being held by property consultants Nelson Bakewell.
Although this particular policy was not a secret, the
amount of ‘assets’ for sale was, until a leaked document
landed in the hands of local activists called
'HackneyNot4Sale', which showed a list of 120 properties potentially in the firing line.
Since then they and other residents have taken various forms of action to highlight the disposal to the public. The first step was to squat a disused brokers shop in Stoke Newington, temporarily turning it into a spoof estate agents, with pictures and text of many of the properties adorning the windows for passers-by to view. Next was the occupation of the head offices of Nelson Bakewell, which had to close down the accounts department for an afternoon. The most recent attempt to prevent the PDP came when the first of four publicised auctions occured. Twelve properties in Hackney were for sale and one of the most contentious properties was a former Day Centre, which had been previously squatted by parents. Residents entered the auction and partook in false bidding, raising the price up to £920,000. In the end the Day nursery, 'Lot 64', was sold.
Currently at least 2,000 children are on a waiting list to get into nurseries in the borough, a point not lost on the protester who took the action. Preferring to remain anoynomous they said, “the council is selling off properties, which is not theirs, it belongs to the community,…it’s short term thinking, what are they going to do when all the assets are sold? They’ll still have the debts". According to Hackney spokesperson Ian Rathbone, the policy is not as effective as they would like, "Large amounts of money has already been raised from the selling of the assets but due to the property having to be made ready for sale the financial situation is becoming worse, the council’s spokesperson explained, “selling property is a short to medium term solution to the problem of getting cash. The re-evaluation programme is adding to our financial crisis this year, you start out at the beginning and you think right we’re going to make £20 million but in reality we haven’t seen it”.
Andrew Robertson