Workers' Liberty

Hackney Council is carrying out an appraisal for estate cleaning and ground maintenance services, and are considering three options:

1. Full outsourcing of contractors for both services across Hackney Homes.
   
   

Over 70 Hackney residents packed into a public meeting on Monday evening to protest against Hackney Council's plan to fragment, privatise and over-populate their estates.

I gave the opening speech, largely an updated version on this blog entry from a while back. There was then plenty of discussion, despite some rather heavy-handed chairing.

Hackney Council's Cabinet has agreed to the deputy mayor's proposals for 'estate regeneration' - selling spaces on estates to be built on. The policy that was agreed by the Labour Group was bad enough, but the version that went to Cabinet looks even worse.

Having saved ourselves from the wrecking ball last year, our estate - and all other estates in Hackney - now face another fight to defend the places we live. Hackney Labour has a plan for Council estates: to sell pieces of their land to Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) to build new 'affordable' homes on.

by Tony Osborne, Aspland & Marcon estates

The ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation), set up by Hackney Council to manage its housing stock, and now called Hackney Homes, ‘went live’ in April. It is supposed to deliver central government’s Decent Homes programme, and bring all Hackney Council’s housing up to a standard that is fit to live in by 2010.

ALMO is no solution

Hackney Council is pressing ahead with its Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO), despite very little support in the community.

When Hackney Solidarity asked residents of Mountford estate, we found that most people had not heard of the ALMO, and those who had knew little of the detail.

A letter to the Hackney Gazette

I would like to draw your attention to one of the side-effects of the Acceptable Behaviour Zone (Dispersal Order) on the Pembury estate. Since it came into force, there has been a dramatic rise in harmful behaviour (eg. racist harrassment, threats of violence, damage to vehicles and community gardens) on our estates, which lie just outside the zone.

Residents of Aspland estate and Marcon Court have been successful in their campaign (as reported on in Solidarity) to force Hackney Council to back down from its plan to privatise their estates.

Notes from AWL North London branch meeting 21st June 2005

• Estate residents stop privatisation

• Hackney schools campaign
• Branch activities
• Iraqi trade unions

An update from 'Hackney Solidarity'.

• Hackney schools under threat - stop the replacement of Homerton College of Technology with an academy

• Round One to the Residents - community fightback forces Council U-turn on estate privatisation

Residents of Aspland estate and Marcon Court have forced Hackney Council to back down from its plan to privatise their estates.

The Council's Cabinet will discuss the issue on 25 July, and was going to vote on a recommendation to transfer the estates to a new landlord, and to demolish Marcon Court and rebuild it with a majority of private flats for sale.

From: Aspland & Marcon Estates Tenants' & Residents' Association

News release

RESIDENTS SLAM ESTATE PRIVATISATION PLAN

Residents of Aspland estate and Marcon Court have slammed Council plans to transfer their estates to a private developer.

From 'Hackney Solidarity' April 2005 issue, for Aspland & Marcon estates

by Janine Booth

The future of our estates still hangs in the balance, as the Council continues to attack us, and we as a community – through the Tenants’ & Residents’ Association – do our best to stick up for ourselves and our rights.

Solidarity spoke to Tony Osborne, Vice Chair of Aspland and Marcon Estate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association, Hackney about their campaign.

Hackney Council has revealed its plan to demolish Marcon Court and replace it with private flats for sale. After failing to properly maintain the estate for twenty years, the council now wants to bulldoze it and create a new development, three-quarters of which will be private, with only 30 Council flats.

At the end of last month residents of run-down Hackney estate Marcon Court awoke to find their estate getting a really decent clean-up. Could it be that Hackney Council had finally listened to our demands?

Residents of Marcon Court in Hackney have hung a banner on their community hall, declaring that the estate is NOT FOR SALE and calling on the Council to IMPROVE OUR HOMES NOW.

This is the text of a leaflet which explains to passers-by what the banner is all about.

NEWS RELEASE: from Aspland & Marcon Estates Tenants' & Residents' Association

On Monday 24 May, residents of Marcon Court will present Hackney's Cabinet with a letter demanding that it take urgent action to renovate their run-down homes.

On Thursday morning, residents of run-down Hackney estate Marcon Court awoke to find their estate getting a really decent clean-up. Could it be that Hackney Council had finally listened to our demands?

No. The truth was that we were due a visit from some people from Ken Livingstone's office.

Hackney Council has once again betrayed the residents of Marcon Court, an 81-home estate in the centre of the borough.

First, it leaves the estate to rot for twenty years. Then it promises Major Repairs, only to confess that this was a lie. Now, it says that nothing will be done for three years.

Marcon Court is an estate in central Hackney which the Council is considering privatising and/or demolishing. Residents are fighting against this, and demanding instead that the Council remain as their landlord and refurbish their homes.

Residents decided that they needed to hear the experience of community activists from other estates that had been privatised. So at the Tenants' and Residents' Association (TRA) meeting on 8 December 2003, Nick Strauss from Haggerston Estate spoke. This is a summary of what he said, followed by questions from residents and Nick's answers.

It should be useful not just to residents of Marcon Court, but to others - both in Hackney and around the country - who are trying to understand the privatisation plans of the Government and their local Council, in order to be better equipped to fight them.