This is how bad things are in the New Deal area. The 10 community board members, nine of whom are homeowners, are slowly becoming strangers in their own communities (the New deal area has been split into five areas with 2 board members representing each area. There are 22 people on the board, 10 of them are community members) and those same communities have not got a clue as to what they are up to.
This £62m regeneration money is tearing my community apart. One-time friends are now bitter enemies and a wedge has been driven between the homeowners and the tenants. The tenants are in a 60 per cent majority in the New Deal area yet the homeowners are calling all the shots. The homeowners who are involved want to see the back of us tenants. As far as they are concerned we are second class citizens and as such should be thrown out of the community.