Housing sell-off still on the agenda?

There is nothing like a suspected conspiracy of silence for shouting volumes. In this case it is the reticence of Swansea Council to publish its Welsh Housing Quality Standard Business Plan. In other words, how it intends to bring its council housing up to acceptable standards.

As the council says on its website, tenants voted in 2007 against plans to hive off their homes to yet another arm’s length body which the Lib Dems are so fond of creating to avoid any sort of direct future accountability. This time it was a community housing association which could serve as a notionally cheaper option for management and maintenance. Since then, Holley & Co have been at a loss over to how to go about meeting the government minimum standard and will only say that “much more money is needed than the Council can access”.

Now, concerns are growing among tenant groups that the 'Housing Futures Programme', set up to explore alternatives is simply a vehicle to re-package earlier sell-off plans but this time with greater assistance in the way of public relations and ‘stakeholder consultation’ from Cardiff Bay. Rumours are circulating that a local housing association has already been lined up to undertake a controversial transfer and the Welsh Assembly Government is not helping to dispel these whispers by refusing to disclose anything, despite a Freedom of Information request, about details of a Business Plan lodged by Swansea Council with civil servants.

A number of local critics have already pointed out that the person best placed to elaborate on the council’s strategy for its 14,000 council homes is Lib Dem cabinet member Peter May, who is also busy at the moment trying to get himself elected MP in Swansea West. However, the more cynical among them also claim that it is his parliamentary ambitions which are the reason why details have been suppressed to date.