Vote to return to city council
We are urging council tenants in Sheffield to vote to return the management of their homes to the local authority in a ballot which began yesterday.
Arguments will be put to support Sheffield Homes continuing to manage homes on behalf of the council but in future the safe place to be will be with the council. Rents will rise more with Sheffield Homes, services will be cut back more and it is likely that it will be privatised.
Tenants influence councils through elected councillors. Their voices are n protest or support.
But who controls Sheffield Homes? Unelected people who were never voted in. No doubt Sheffield Homes was a good idea in 2004 as it was able to lever in more investment then. But not now. Use your vote to return to direct management by Sheffield council.
Dr Cathy Davis and Alan Wigfield, lecturers in housing, Salford and Sheffield Hallam universities
Costs relating to Park Hill
Paul License states that ‘the Labour faithful in our town hall were happy to dig into the coffers and hand out another couple of million quid to the Park Hill flats vanity project the other day’ (Jan 13).
The truth about this claim is that there are some costs relating to the Park Hill site, including keeping remaining residents safe and rehousing tenants, which have always been the responsibility of the council.
These have nothing to do with the renovation costs. Until recently these costs were paid by a government fund called Housing Market Renewal. The coalition has ended this fund and the council has been left to pick up the £2.5million bill. These costs are our sole responsibility.
The Lib Dems repeatedly criticised us for covering these costs. All they are really interested in is talking down the Park Hill project to score political points.
Coun Harry Harpham, housing cabinet member
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Friday 25 May 2012
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Comments
There are 11 comments to this article
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Reason
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:58 AMHarry Harpham is a complete buffoon. He and his party wouldn't know how to run a housing department if their lives depended on it. He spouts so much misinformation that I am surprised it doesn't stick in his throat and choke him. Can he explain how Sheffield Homes would cost more for the rent payer? They do not set the rents levels, he and his other thick headed cronies do. Unelected people running Sheffield Homes? Don't make me laugh, most of the managers were members of the old housing department before the council decided to set up the organisation if my memory serves me right. So, instead of having a set board, with professionals and elected members including independent members, that remain fairly constant, the management of our homes will be under the dubious 'experience' of him and anyone that he thinks suitable...or of course, yet another cabinet member if, at the next local elections, he and his cronies get booted out of office. There is no consistency in that course of action because the management and housing policies could change every few years depending on which party gets voted in !! Of course, he and his labour cronies, would also like to get their grubby little paws on the hundreds of thousands of pounds savings made by Sheffield Homes over the past few years of running the housing department. I wonder how many other departments in the council can say that they have achieved that in the past few years? Like I said Harpham, don't make me laugh, you don't give a brass farthing about the tenants or the management of housing......you just want to get that money and have more power than you already have. I personally have no complaints about my housing, decent homes work or the what has been provided by their staff. When you think back to 2004 when the council were running the show and the state of the place then, compared to now - there is no comparison in my view. It also shows how out of touch you are Harpham, if you really believe that the good people of Sheffield accept good money being thrown at Park Hill when the majority of people would love to see it demolished like it should have been years ago. Do us all a favour, wind your thick neck back in and leave well be.
pleasant
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:08 AMIt makes no difference which lot manage, the result will be the same - the same old incompetent people doing a bad job. There is a secret society in the town hall and they do whatever they like, such as taking our school away. The same will happen with our homes, they will decide everything first then ask us what they want.
Derek.Hutchinson
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 12:05 AM"Rents will rise more with Sheffield Homes, services will be cut back more and it is likely that it will be privatised. ",, since privatised industry pays taxes that actually go into the coffers rather than be rotated as in the public sector, would that not be a good thing?...The private sector would not generate the waste that the public sector does at the moment..
Derek.Hutchinson
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 12:00 AMSheffield council cannot collect the rents of the few housing estates that they run so how can taking over Housing association properties be better for anyone?....The way in which incompetence seems to run within the council where they are owed £26m plus only shows their inability to do the job efficiently with a no blame system and responsibility they shrug it off making the tax payer liable for their inadequacies...If they collected the rents and taxes due, the current proposed cuts in Sheffield including weekly bin collections would not be an issue...
jose342
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 10:00 AMWhat a load of rubbish, by two so called professionals, a Dr in housing studies and an ex councillor. You would think between them, they could get the facts right. Anyone who believes this load of rubbish, really ought to get out into the real world and smell the roses. I feel sorry for the people who have paid for a course to learn about housing from these two misinformants.
stevee
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 12:01 AMThey may be lectureres but their facts are wrong - rents are set by the gov't not the councl or sheffield homes. The true question for tenants is what will the future of the housing service look like - not who runs it as even if Sheffield Homes continues it is owned by the council.. Do you want a Housing Service thats still all under one umbrella department or organisaiton or do you want it broken up into different sections of the council making it harder to monitor what rent money is spent on and a less joined up service. That's what the council are planning. There will be no 'housing department 'in 2014 it will all have been absorbed into who knows where. The options that tenants are voting on do not address this
seenitall
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 12:26 PMOnly a Sheffield Labour Council could see anything worth preserving with those wretched flats. The money wasted on them could have been better spent and, like the Student Games, another of Labour's Vanity projects will haunt the Sheffield taxpayers for decades. It's about time we woke up in Sheffield and stopped voting for" Party", but rather by "Competence" and then we might get rid of some of these half-wits who are incapable of making a sensible decision without help from "experts".
Sir Taxedalot
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 11:29 AMOh look there's a surprise, Cllr Harpham bemoaning the loss of yet another grant of tax payers money to fund another one of Labour's wretched vanity projects. Perhaps The Star would like to include the Park Hill Flats project as part of their Our Right To Know campaign. I would certainly like to know how much tax payers money has been poured into that vanity project. Similarly, the South Yorkshire Digital Region is set to close as yet another failed Labour quango vanity project flushes more millions down the pan. How much has that little lot cost us?
Zap
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 11:28 AMalan Wigfield - ex labour councillor - was always going to say that - the more the experts say do something, the more I doubt its the right thing to do....
Blue-Stratos
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 10:37 AMYes the Lib Dems do talk the project down because its loosing money hand over fist, As stated by Sheffieldman it would have been far better to knock it down and use the millions ploughed into it to build new modern safe houses. You cannot make a silk purse out of a Labour sow's ear.
Sheffieldman
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 09:39 AMKnock the bloody thing down. It's an eyesore and looks even worse with those tacky coloured panels.
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