Back to index of Nerve 8 - Spring 2006

The End of Council Housing in the City of Culture

By Bernie Fitzgerald

In the summer of 2006 Liverpool City Council hopes to transfer the last of its housing stock to Liverpool Mutual Homes, a partnership comprising Liverpool Housing Trust, Pinnacle and Plus Housing. Up to nineteen thousand houses will pass out of council control, subject to a yes vote in a ballot, and into the hands of a registered social landlord, thereby confirming the end of council housing in this city.

The ballot can't come soon enough for some tenants living in unmodernised houses, but it won't solve everybody's problems overnight.

It's a Saturday night around nine o'clock, the fog lies thin in the air and I'm driving around a bleak landscape full of wasteland and desolation; every now and again I can see through my windscreen maybe one or two houses in a road with lights on and the rest of the properties are tinned up with the roofs smashed in and surrounded by fly-tipped rubbish and tractor tyres. Welcome to the Boot estate within Norris Green 2006. Some parts of the Boot estate look quite similar to bombed out Basra in Iraq or Kabul in Afghanistan and yet the tenants here still have to pay full rent with yearly rent increases to live here. What is the choice? Not much I think, buying a tent or a caravan may be a cheap option but then travellers aren't looked upon with too much respect are they? The council owns the Boot estate, but this is not subject to a tenant ballot; the houses are worthless and so the estate is being demolished by the council and the new houses are being built by New City Vision. Any council tenant from the Boot estate is supposed to have a choice of any other council house in the city or a chance to come back onto the newly built estate, but this is too much of an oversimplification and a lot of people are bewildered.

Not all of Norris Green is grim, and the reputation it has got is unfair: anti-social behaviour is nationwide and not just carried out around here. In fact some parts of the large sprawling estate are quite desirable places to live, and some houses are being sold for around £110,000. The Boot estate however is a different matter altogether. Getting out is not easy either, the choices are limited and the misery may be prolonged. Some tenants will not be moving out for at least another five years, because they have nowhere to go.

The Boot houses are being pulled down before they fall down; they are defective buildings. However, city council tenants live in fear and resentment at the continual tissue of lies and relentless streams of broken promises they have had to endure to make a new Norris Green urban village almost fit for heroes. The city council pulled the plug on the rebuilding of the Boot estate a while ago due to the plans being unworkable. The fall guy, Richard Kemp, was hung out to dry after being exposed as basically out of his depth in local government (he was inept and lacking the required expertise in housing management and maintenance). Flo Clucas was then dragged into the mire.

New plans emerged for another Boot estate rebuilding plan. Hopes were raised only to be squashed again when people started to realise that about two hundred shoebox size properties are to be erected; ninety-odd for rent to the social housing sector and the rest to be sold on the open market. Strips of land are to be used for new housing but the rebuild will be piecemeal and will be spread out with no definite timescale for completion.

A lot of people moved out of Norris Green about five years ago thinking that they were coming back to a brand new house on a brand new estate.

While Liverpool's leaders can find hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investment to jazz up the city centre, tenants in council houses are left to rot in dwellings that can't get any repairs carried out to them. If anyone calls the repair line on 233 3005 they have to wait half an hour to get through, and then wait six months to see a surveyor who will inform them that there is no money for repairs. Why send out a surveyor in the first place? The call centre should just say, ''Nothing doing", and then at least tenants would know where they stood.

Cobalt Housing took over the old council stock in Norris Green, Sparrow Hall, Fazakerley, Gillmoss and Croxteth three years ago, subject to a tenant ballot. They promptly set about providing double-glazing and new doors as part of an investment programme. The programme also includes central heating, new kitchens and bathrooms.

Cobalt Housing is not perfect but it's sticking to its promises of investment. The changes are both marked and striking, proving that people do want to live in the area; they want to stay there, and the demand for houses has outstripped supply.

The city council is bending over backwards to get rid of its housing stock so that all properties can meet the decent homes standard by 2009/10. The council is slowly eradicating its own purpose and point of existence. If all the housing goes then what do we need councillors, council and pathway partnerships for? If everything is privatised or in the hands of registered social landlords then surely all of the council staff will become superfluous; all they can hope for is to be taken on by the new landlords for employment.

So this year could have an historical importance as it may see the end of council housing in this city forever. The rise of the registered social landlord continues, but at least the tenants can expect to live in a decent house; it's not too much to ask is it?

Statement by the Nerve Editorial Board
"Nerve Editorial Board believe that people have an absolute right to good quality, affordable housing, and we support tenants who fight for this. This struggle is not just against the Liverpool Council, who have let tenants down, but also against successive governments that have starved councils of cash. We also feel our readers should know that Cobalt Housing is a subsidiary of LHT. Nerve has been critical of LHT in previous issues because of their treatment of tenants. We would like to hear your views on all the issues raised on these pages."