Eviction resistance in Bristol
billy | 12.11.2008 17:49 | 2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces | Free Spaces | Social Struggles
check out story here
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/689221?&condense_comments=false#comment41008
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/689221?&condense_comments=false#comment41008
Dear Neighbours
At 10.am this morning (12/11/08) police and bailiffs smashed their way into 87 Ashley Road evicting some of the occupants. Several people are on the roof, while contractors and bailiffs rip up the inside to make the house uninhabitable.
We are resisting this eviction because…
1.We need somewhere to live.
2.Taking your housing needs into your own hands is a positive thing, especially when social housing has such long waiting lists.
3.This building has been left empty for at least 4 years, during this time both Places for People (P4P) and Bristol Churches (previous owners) have made no attempt to renovate or convert it into social housing. That’s 8 potential flats that have been left to rot. And for the past 6 months no.87 has housed more than 30 people.
4.P4P have no planning permission to use or renovate this building. This morning a P4P representative said that the only active planning application they have is for April 2009, where 87 will contain a ‘site office’ for the ‘development’ of 16 other ‘shared ownership’ properties in the St. Pauls Area.
5.St. Pauls UnLtd have opposed P4P’s plans because they did not provide enough social housing or affordable housing.
6.Existing P4P tenants complain about the standard of service of maintenance in their existing properties.
7.Everyone has a right to a home: Squatting is legal, necessary, and provides an alternative to the stranglehold of debt that underpins the current financial crisis.
8.Tying people into 30+years of mortgage debt is an illusion of housing security, in the light recent repossessions.
9.We are part of this community and against all privatizations, repossessions and evictions.
P4P are more concerned with money than housing those in need they are the biggest UK housing association and have the highest paid chief executives in the housing sector (Director salary: £258k in 2007). Housing associations were set up to fill the gap left by Thatcher’s destruction of social housing provision. They cannot legally make profits, but make up for this with fat bonus checks for the fat cats. That’s taxpayer’s money going to fund extravagant lifestyles
‘Direct action is better than any waiting list’ Squatters handbook. (Or mortgage!)
At 10.am this morning (12/11/08) police and bailiffs smashed their way into 87 Ashley Road evicting some of the occupants. Several people are on the roof, while contractors and bailiffs rip up the inside to make the house uninhabitable.
We are resisting this eviction because…
1.We need somewhere to live.
2.Taking your housing needs into your own hands is a positive thing, especially when social housing has such long waiting lists.
3.This building has been left empty for at least 4 years, during this time both Places for People (P4P) and Bristol Churches (previous owners) have made no attempt to renovate or convert it into social housing. That’s 8 potential flats that have been left to rot. And for the past 6 months no.87 has housed more than 30 people.
4.P4P have no planning permission to use or renovate this building. This morning a P4P representative said that the only active planning application they have is for April 2009, where 87 will contain a ‘site office’ for the ‘development’ of 16 other ‘shared ownership’ properties in the St. Pauls Area.
5.St. Pauls UnLtd have opposed P4P’s plans because they did not provide enough social housing or affordable housing.
6.Existing P4P tenants complain about the standard of service of maintenance in their existing properties.
7.Everyone has a right to a home: Squatting is legal, necessary, and provides an alternative to the stranglehold of debt that underpins the current financial crisis.
8.Tying people into 30+years of mortgage debt is an illusion of housing security, in the light recent repossessions.
9.We are part of this community and against all privatizations, repossessions and evictions.
P4P are more concerned with money than housing those in need they are the biggest UK housing association and have the highest paid chief executives in the housing sector (Director salary: £258k in 2007). Housing associations were set up to fill the gap left by Thatcher’s destruction of social housing provision. They cannot legally make profits, but make up for this with fat bonus checks for the fat cats. That’s taxpayer’s money going to fund extravagant lifestyles
‘Direct action is better than any waiting list’ Squatters handbook. (Or mortgage!)
billy
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Housing Associations
13.11.2008 19:48
No name could be more inappropriate than "Places for People". Housing Associations (aka RSLs -Registered Social Landlords) are basically job clubs for their staff, especially the senior bosses. They claim to be "non-profit", but that just means the bosses pocket the profits rather than the shareholders they don't have.
However, it's wrong to say HAs were invented to plug gaps created by Thatcher. The old ones go back to the 19th century and a new wave of them was established in the late '60s and early '70s, before Thatcher crawled out from under her stone. Since then, there have been lots of changes with increasing commercialisation and so many mergers, with big HAs swallowing up small ones, that the head spins.
Now here's the interesting bit. The HA "industry" is currently fucked and in a panic. Thatcherism progressively reduced the proportion of public funding they get for building new places or converting old ones and made them rely mainly on borrowing from the "market". The pathetically insufficient number of places for rent they have built in recent years are basically subsidised by the revenue they get from building places for sale or "shared ownership".
Now the "market" isn't lending them money any more and they can't flog the places they've built for sale. Having kept various criminal gangs in business with billions*, Brown & Co say they will now put pressure on them to start lending to people through mortgages again (though bugger all sign of it so far). Will they be putting similar pressure on for "the market" to start lending to HAs again? If so, will it be to finance social rented housing or to relaunch the HAs' built-and-flogit business? Was that a bear I saw going into the service station toilets? Has the pope joined the UDP?
Isn't housing finance fun, eh?
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* To nick someone else's joke, quoting the English Collective of Prostitutes;
"We've seen the money they say doesn't exist"
Stroppyoldgit