The fruits of people power
Just over seven years ago, I got an invite to a meeting which some local people had organised in the ward where I was a councillor.
The organisers of the meeting were worried about the way that their area was changing, as a result of buy to let landlords buying up family homes and renting them out.
This led to increasing amounts of rubbish in front gardens, lack of parking, some homes where ten or more people were crowded in to maximise rental income, and others where tenants received an appalling service from their landlord.
About thirty people turned up to that meeting. They argued that landlords should have a duty to ensure that their properties were kept neat and tidy, that bad landlords were destroying the community and that the council should take action to sort this problem out.
The response at the time from the government was that they were keen to reduce the ‘burden of regulation’ on landlords, and were dead set against giving councils powers which would enable them to address these concerns.
The local residents weren’t deterred – they made links with other residents’ groups across the city who had similar concerns, they turned up to try to influence planning decisions which they felt would be detrimental to their area, and they kept the pressure on their elected representatives to try to change the government’s mind.
Fast forward to 2010 – the organiser of the meeting is now chair of the local residents’ association, and another resident who was actively involved was elected to the council in 2006 as my successor. The local Labour MP called debates in parliament on the subject and the Labour-run council urged the government to give them the powers to introduce a mandatory registration scheme for landlords.
And last Wednesday, Housing Minister John Healey came to Oxford Town Hall to announce that he would amend existing legislation so local authorities could introduce compulsory licensing schemes from April.
He said: “I am giving councils more powers to crack down on the worst landlords and stop the spread of high concentrations of shared homes, where it causes problems for other residents or changes the character of a neighbourhood.”
It takes time, and there are always frustrations along the way – but as a result of a meeting back in 2002, which a couple of local people organised, and which their friends and neighbours decided to attend, councils will now be able to act to prevent bad landlords exploiting their tenants and ruining communities.
---------------------------
| Tweet |
Don Paskini is deputy-editor of LC. He also blogs at donpaskini. He is on twitter as @donpaskini
· Other posts by Don Paskini
Filed under
Blog ,Local Government
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Reader comments
“The response at the time from the government was that they were keen to reduce the ‘burden of regulation’ on landlords, and were dead set against giving councils powers which would enable them to address these concerns.”
All too many landlords seem to think that being a landlord just means free money. I and almost everyone I know who rents at some time have had an experience where basic services weren’t offered (my friend still has a gaping hole in his ceiling that drips water onto his bed from 3 months ago and I’ve just got the warm water back in my shower after 6 months without).
If you want to make money from rent it’s not just a case of lending your house to someone… being a landlord is a JOB and you have to keep your side of the deal.
Tom,
Since you have a contract, if it is the landlord’s responsibility to do something and they are in breach of contract, stop paying them (although have the money ready for when the work is done). I have no idea if this is legal, but it is morally correct.
However, having actually had good landlords (one even cut the grass, despite the fact that was on my side of the duties…) can I remind people they do exist, and would probably welcome a sensible measure so long as it did not cost them. If it does, that cost is going onto the renters anyway.
Incidentally, the Housing Minister made this announcement – has it been agreed by parliament? If not, how does this agree with the campaign of local action, that it is not voted upon by our locally elected representatives?
Hi watchman,
“However, having actually had good landlords (one even cut the grass, despite the fact that was on my side of the duties…) can I remind people they do exist, and would probably welcome a sensible measure so long as it did not cost them.”
Good point – in my experience, the good landlords are some of the ones who get most frustrated by the current situation – they put lots of effort in to keeping their properties looking nice and helping their tenants, while others just care about the rent cheque and couldn’t care less.
That’s why voluntary regulation schemes didn’t work – the landlords that signed up are the ones who didn’t need regulating anyway.
It might be that as the centre decays, some ministers are getting stuff through that has been blocked by the neocon/neolib control freaks of No.10/No.11 throughout the long years of NuLab.
There’s stuff on this in Chris Mullin’s diary “A View from the Foothills”, where one of the few things he hoped to be able to do as a lowly junior minister at Prescott’s Department of Environment, Transport & the Regions was to crack down on the easy money being poured out of government via housing benefit to unscrupulous large scale buy-to-let landlords. This was in 1999.
Whether 10 years + (or 7 years in your case), frankly I think it’s all been too long to wait for what are mild & moderate reforms. The wrong people have been in charge all this time.
There’s a different social issue on buy-to-let, which I would like to bring up. In cities with a housing shortage, it is almost de rigeur now for some in the 30/40/50-something professional classes to have 2, 3 or more rental properties in their portfolio to supplement their income, whilst the 20 somethings behind them are denied any foothold onto the so-called housing ladder. So their earnings are going in rent as a subsidy to their preceding generation. People talk about problems for first-time buyers in terms of the banks/credit crunch etc, but there is also the simple issue of landlord-speculators hoarding all the stock. The only way into home ownership (the only ticket going to some kind of security in your old age in this stupid society) is to inherit. Hence the decline in social mobility already being observed, will just get worse & worse.
This isn’t the greatest injustive in British society, but what interests me is that the people on the receiving end are the young & energetic and I just can’t understand why they aren’t getting radicalised by this.
Strategist,
I think the answer is in the issue of perception of rights over property (wierdly I commented on a parallel discussion on this on a liberatarian blog earlier). People accept ownership is total, and will not accept that the state can interfere. The buy-to-let problem is the same as holiday home problems in rural areas, but I can’t see an easy solution to it other than building lots of cheap housing (maybe an answer for council housing, but councils are rarely great landlords in my experience). Perhaps strengthening tenants rights to an extent where it is less attractive to be a landlord – maybe ensuring that tenants only pay rent if the landlord has complied with the contract or certain responsibilities (i.e. carrying into law my suggestion in 2. above) would deal with the problem: landlords could therefore not make money out of substandard housing. We can’t impose charges, as landlords, already holding the supply of housing, would simply pass the cost onto tenants, who have no alternative suppliers – my concern about the scheme Don supports incidentally.
I’m not convinced this reflects how you need to campaign in the fast paced, 2.0 world. Surely the real reason for this success is due to the clever application of social media? Social media is how you campaign these days not via “meetings” – ugh! Don’s anecdote just doesn’t reflect how modern, vibrant people campaign in the modern world. It must have involved a hashtag somehow. Or maybe a Facebook group.
@6
I can’t work out whether you’re being all groovy and postmodernistically ironic or what.
Personally I don’t think you can beat a good old-fashioned face-to-face meeting. Sure, tweet away after it and set up a facebook group/event promoting it, even invite all of your 1000+ myspace friends along. But for community issues (and even national ones, for that matter) I don’t think you can get a better idea of what’s what than actually *talking* (remember that? it’s what we did before txt…) and bouncing ideas/arguments around. Don’t forget a LOT of people don’t have/care for so-called “social media”, at least outside London anyway…
oh and @6 again: sorry if you were being ironic. I’m tired and it never translates well across the internet :/
@5 “People accept ownership is total, and will not accept that the state can interfere.”
Although you could do lots through quite minor tweaks to the tax regime.
But there’s a lot in the saying that the one thing the British hate more than being taxed on their earned income is being taxed on their unearned income.
For the record: yes, I was being ironic.
Reactions: Twitter, blogs
- Liberal Conspiracy
The fruits of people power http://bit.ly/dBKTlC
- Shreyas
Liberal Conspiracy » The fruits of people power: The fruits of people power. by Don Paskini January 29, 2010 at 3:… http://bit.ly/dl4Yrt
- George Allwell
Liberal Conspiracy » The fruits of people power http://bit.ly/dBKTlC
- Coercing Saddam and lessons for Iran « Left Outside
[...] fall of the Shah in Iran was clearly one of the worst foreign policy events for the US since the end of the second world [...]
- Ed Miliband
Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH great post
- Conor O' Keeffe
Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH great post. Democracy lives!
- Hannah Worth
RT @thedancingflea: Things get done when people take ownership – brilliant. RT @EdMilibandMP: Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH
- Alan Williams
RT @EdMilibandMP: Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH great post
- Steve State
RT @EdMilibandMP: Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH great post
- Max Atkinson
RT @EdMilibandMP: Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH great post. – Haven't cabinet ministers anything better to do than read blogs?
- Claire Spencer
Things get done when people take ownership – brilliant. RT @EdMilibandMP: Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH great post
- Max Atkinson
RT @EdMilibandMP: Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH great post – or maybe reading blogs counts as keeping in touch with the masses!
- Gary Williams
RT @EdMilibandMP: Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH great post
- uberVU - social comments
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by libcon: The fruits of people power http://bit.ly/dBKTlC...
- Dravin Bheemah
Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH great post (via @EdMilibandMP)
- Chamberlain Forum
RT @thedancingflea: Things get done when people take ownership -RT @EdMilibandMP: Only just seen this http://bit.ly/bQkhGH
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or RSS feed. You can also get them by email and through our Facebook group.
» Why Quantitative Easing doesn’t make common sense
» Barclays was also bailed out – Diamond doesn’t deserve a bonus
» Ten myths about private rented housing
» Even on the left, morality has its limits
» The NHS bill could be a Waterloo moment for the govt
» Ken Livingstone and gay rights – it just isn’t an issue
» Abu Qatada deportation: what about our principles?
» New study shows a Robinhood tax would boost growth
» In defence of Sky News’ re-Tweeting ban
» Another reason to continue banker bashing
» An attack on the wind industry is an attack on UK jobs
|
5 Comments 15 Comments 17 Comments 26 Comments 42 Comments 21 Comments 13 Comments 49 Comments 11 Comments 78 Comments |
LATEST COMMENTS » BenSix posted on Fabians change policy on unpaid internships » Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away? | My Blog posted on Labour's wonks are becoming part of the problem » Owen Blacker posted on Dorries says Osborne wanted Lansley "shot" » Richard Blogger posted on Dorries says Osborne wanted Lansley "shot" » Daniel Henry posted on Dorries says Osborne wanted Lansley "shot" » nonny mouse posted on Dorries says Osborne wanted Lansley "shot" » Socrates posted on Dorries says Osborne wanted Lansley "shot" » Bloody Yank posted on Why Quantitative Easing doesn't make common sense » Bloody Yank posted on Why Quantitative Easing doesn't make common sense » Robin Levett posted on An attack on the wind industry is an attack on UK jobs » kernowjim posted on High pay - in football and banking - shouldn't be about morality » ROFLMFAO posted on Fabians change policy on unpaid internships » Cherub posted on High pay - in football and banking - shouldn't be about morality » jojo posted on Venables journo has manslaughter conviction » Sun journos nicked in hack enquiry shocker « andrew henley posted on Venables journo has manslaughter conviction |








