It is little more than a year ago that Eastleigh-based Atlantic took over failing housing association Pavilion. First Wessex has now merged with Portsmouth Housing Association. The new group chief executive will be Peter Walters, the chairman Ben Stoneham.

The new group will control around 16,000 homes across Hampshire

This is bad news for tenants, who had no say, were not consulted over the merger. There will be yet less accountability to the people who matter, the tenants.

Pavilion tenants opposed the takeover of Pavilion by Atlantic, but it went ahead anyway. The tenants were not consulted.

In the first six month honeymoon period, Pavilion tenants saw an improvement, they were treated like human beings, repairs were promptly carried out. Since then the situation has markedly deteriorated, in part because senior management took their eyes of the ball and were focused on acquiring Portsmouth Housing Association. The view of tenants, is that the situation is now as bad, if not worse, than the situation was under Pavilion.

Speaking to tenants, they tell me they are having problems getting repairs carried out, that they are treated like dirt by Pavilion staff.

The sink estates that Pavilion own and manage in Aldershot and Farnborough are rife with anti-social behaviour and drug dealing, to which Pavilion, the police and the local council the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor turn a blind eye.

The merger of housing associations in Hampshire is part of a megalomaniac trend of mega-mergers promoted by the industry regulator the Housing Corporation, which when complete, will leave a handful of large housing associations accountable to no one, least of all their tenants.

The merger with Portsmouth was helped and promoted by the useless head of housing at Rushmoor Alison Whiteley. She produced a report backing First Wessex, a report that falsely claimed there had been improvements, a report and recommendations that the equally useless Rushmoor councillors backed. No attempt was made to seek the views of tenants. Senior management from First Wessex were invited to give their views and who told the council what a good job they were doing and how happy were their tenants.

To date, Alison Whiteley has done nothing to help Pavilion tenants. Prior to the damning Audit Commission report on Pavilion (issued a couple of years ago), she was claiming there was nothing wrong at Pavilion. At Firgrove Court, where Pavilion tenants are being kicked out of their homes to make way for a car park for an unwanted town centre superstore, she has condoned action by Pavilion which includes ripping out kitchens and bathrooms and boilers to render empty properties uninhabitable, properties that have now remained empty for several years. On the other hand, she has fallen over backwards to hand taxpayers money to Pavilion.

It is not only in the social housing sector that Whiteley and her dysfunctional housing department are found wanting. A mentally and physically disabled private sector tenant is living in squalid conditions. No attempt by Whiteley to enforce repairs or rehouse him. In Farnborough town centre, there are at least 70 maisonettes sitting empty, many have been empty for years. No action by Whiteley to bring them back into use, but then it would not do to annoy a developer with who the council has colluded for years. A retired man in his 70s with a heart condition, has slowly, slowly been working on a bungalow as a retirement home. Whiteley blatantly lied to obtain a CPO, claiming he had no intention of bringing it back into use, no attempt had been made by Whiteley to visit the bungalow to see work in progress. The gentleman is suffering stress, which is not helping his heart condition, is having to spend thousands of pounds in legal fees to fight a case at a Public Inquiry to stop his retirement home being seized. Last year two conferences were held by Rushmoor for landlords to explain the provisions of the latest housing legislation. No such conferences have been held for tenants, and Whiteley has made it clear she has no intention of holding any. Officials from her dysfunction housing department with no experience or understanding of buildings, are forcing landlords to spend vast sums of money to retrofit their properties, often in the process conferring no advantages on the properties and placing the tenants at greater risk. At least one landlord has pulled his property off the market rather than throw money down the drain devaluing his property. Whiteley is failing to enforce sections of the new housing legislation against bad landlords, claiming lack of resources.

When Councillor Peter Sandy dared criticise her behaviour, which included bloody-minded obstruction of people trying to help tenants, blatant lying, falling over backwards to find excuses for inaction, she ran a programme of vilification against Peter Sandy, which included referring him to the Standards Board for England. A case which is still ongoing, a case which his lawyers described as ' a storm in a teacup', a case that by the end of January 2007 had cost the taxpayer over £24,000!

Aldershot councillor Peter Sandy, the only councillor who has gone out of his way to act for Pavilion tenants, is currently distributing a newsletter which exposes what is really happening at Pavilion. Copies from Peter Sandy.

 http://www.rushmoor.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3585

Across the country, councils are now finding it increasingly difficult to con their council tenants into agreeing sell-off of their homes. Council tenants only have to look to the experience of Pavilion tenants to see how bad it is if you are dumb enough to agree to sell-off.

Brighton and Swansea are two councils where the tenants have recently said no to privatisation.

In Bracknell, the Lib Dems are calling in the District Auditor after the council had spent a million pounds in a crude attempt to bludgeon their council tenants to agree to privatisation.

Defend Council Housing are holding a National Conference at TUC House in London on Thursday 12 July 2007.

Websites

 http://www.thetruthinrushmoor.co.uk/
 http://www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/

References

Fred Harrison, Boom Bust: House Prices, Banking and the Depression of 2010, Shepheard-Walwyn, 2005
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/books/

Housing associations join forces, Farnborough News, 13 April 2007

Joined Up, Surrey-Hants Star, 12 April 2007

Mike Lane, The Regeneration Game, 2006 {DVD}

Austin Mitchell, Labour conference backs direct investment third year in a row, Defend Council Housing newspaper, October/November 2006

Sebastian Mueller, Impacts of Privatisation, September 2006 {briefing paper for London Social Forum housing conference}

Keith Parkins, Rushmoor Private Landlords Forum, Indymedia UK, 23 January 2006
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/01/332115.html

Keith Parkins, First Wessex plan takeover of Portsmouth housing, Indymedia UK, 12 September 2006
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/350606.html

Keith Parkins, London Social Forum - housing and land rights conference, Indymedia UK, 2 October 2006
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/10/352437.html?c=on

Keith Parkins, M3 Landlord Link Forum, Indymedia UK, 16 October 2006

Keith Parkins, Housing Association Mergers, Indymedia UK, 19 October 2006
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/10/353908.html?c=on

Keith Parkins,Council attempts to seize retirement home, Indymedia UK, 19 December 2006
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358583.html?c=on

Keith Parkins, Council's attempt to seize man's home thwarted, Indymedia UK, 23 December 2006
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358583.html?c=on

Keith Parkins and Mark S Brown, Acrimony in the UK: Housing privatisation, speculation & land ownership, Indymedia UK, 1 March 2007
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/363886.html