Council's £40k on housing 'propaganda' (From This Is Local London)

Wycombe District Council's £40k on housing 'propaganda'

9:22am Wednesday 9th June 2010 in Where I Live By Oliver Evans

Council's £40k on housing 'propaganda'

COUNCIL chiefs are spending almost £40,000 on a magazine branded ‘propaganda’ urging tenants to back a housing sell off.

Figures obtained by The Bucks Free Press show £37,675 will be spent on five issues of ‘Housing Transfer Matters’ by Wycombe District Council.

The glossy magazine is being delivered to about 7,000 tenants’ homes ahead of an October vote to sell off the homes.

Opponents of the sell off say the information provided is one-sided and does not present arguments against.

Yet a council chief said the magazine was vetted by outside bodies – and there were no negatives.

Three issues have been delivered so far, costing £7,535. Two more will be produced, bringing the total cost to £37,675.

It has come out of a £995,000 council pot being spent on the vote, which is proposing to sell the homes to a ‘tenant led’ housing association.

Paul Burnham, spokesman for the Defend Council Housing campaign, branded the magazine ‘propaganda’.

He said: “We want a level playing field of debate. Huge amounts of resources are being poured into just one point of view.”

The council says it cannot spend enough on homes as it has to hand half of its rent cash back to the Government. A housing association would keep all cash, it says.

But Mr Burnham said he was concerned about tenancy rights and ‘the fact that private funding will mean private interests dominate’ – and these were not featured.

The latest issue includes an article on a five year rent increase ‘guarantee’ and ‘frequently asked questions’ including the question: ‘transfer just sounds too good to be true?’ The March issue includes an interview with the chairman of a similar organisation in Watford who said moving away from the town’s council had led to a ‘real improvement’.

But the association, Watford Community Housing Trust, was only rated as good as the district council in March by the national Audit Commission spending watchdog, a rating of ‘fair’.

Yet Cllr Chris Watson said: “It is our job to ensure they are properly informed of all the options. It is factual information.”

The magazine says content is checked by the Homes and Communities Agency, ‘specialist lawyers’, the Tenant Services Authority and its independent tenants’ advisor, Solon, which is being paid by WDC.

Cllr Watson said of criticism of the magazine: “We are hard put to find any negatives. The biggest negative is probably a psychological one.”

A vote to transfer the homes to a regular housing association was defeated in 2000.

The £995,000 will be repaid only in the event of a yes vote from the new housing association, to be called Red Kite Community Housing.

Its board would include six tenants, one leaseholder, three council nominees and five independents.

Cllr Watson said he expected the council to get less than £10m if the homes are sold.

Click the links below to read the magazine and see more stories about the plan.