Cornwall fails to consult tenants on takeover plan

By Martin Hilditch
Published: 26 January 2007 Inside Housing
Tenants of a flagship arm’s-length management organisation are taking legal advice after its future was thrown into doubt by a ‘hostile takeover’ bid for its parent council.
Carrick District Council would be scrapped under a proposal by Cornwall County Council to become a unitary authority.
The move has created major uncertainty for Carrick Housing, one of only three ALMOs involved in a high-profile government pilot examining the feasibility of breaking away from the complex housing finance system.
With just over a month to go until Carrick Council is due to report back to the Treasury, the bid is making it difficult to work out what effect coming out of the finance system would have on the ALMO.
The pilot’s findings are meant to help the Treasury decide whether ‘opting out’ would be a viable option for similarly sized organisations.
Carrick Housing tenants said they were furious that they had not been consulted about the potential impact of the move by the county council.
Grenville Chappel, chair of the Carrick District Forum of Tenants, said Cornwall County Council had failed to appreciate the implications for the future of the ALMO.
In a letter circulated to those district councillors who also sit on the county council, he said: ‘We are extremely
concerned that proposals have been developed and are planned to be submitted to the government that would bring about specific changes for council tenants without the tenants themselves actually being consulted.’
The takeover proposal was prompted by guidance from the Communities and Local Government department which said county councils should draw up plans to ensure districts worked more closely together.
Marianne Hood, a consultant hired by Carrick tenants, said that there could be problems in other areas where district councils had retained ownership of stock.
‘The whole thrust of the local government white paper is about empowering local communities. Unless
[the CLG] sorts this out it completely contradicts it,’ she said.
‘Unfortunately in the CLG paper there was no reminder that if there were district councils with retained stock then tenants should be consulted before decisions [to become unitary authorities] were formed.’
A spokesperson for the CLG confirmed stock-owning councils would have to talk to tenants before changes to management could proceed. ‘Tenants should be fully consulted about changes to the management of their homes as set out in section 105 of the Housing Act 1985,’ he said.