Leaseholders forced to pay council £40,000 each for repairs

By Rosie Lavan

A leading local campaigner has warned the council not to underestimate the “political force” of leaseholders in Islington.

Brian Potter, chair of the newly formed Islington Leaseholders Association, told Islington Now that the 11,000 leaseholders in the borough “really do stand out, not just as a financial force. We are now a political force.”

He said: “That sort of [political] leverage is the only thing that works and it works right up to central government. That’s why they have been so loathe to allow leaseholders to join hands.”

Housing concerns continue to dominate the political agenda in the borough, and the leaseholders issue has become particularly contentious.

Leaseholders, who bought their properties from the council, have been struck with huge bills for repairs to communal areas of buildings and estates they share with council tenants.

Residents on the Spa Green estate, just off Rosebery Avenue, have faced bills of up to £40,000 per leaseholder, and on the St Luke’s estate bills have reached £20,000.

Anna Scott, a leaseholder on an estate in St George’s, said the charges had “slaughtered a lot of the leaseholders round here”.

She said two of her neighbours, also leaseholders, had been forced to move because they could not pay the bills: “It’s absolutely diabolical that some leaseholders have had to move out – further out of the borough and further out of London.”

Ms Scott said one of the main reasons for the huge service charges leaseholders have received was the Major Works programme, which the council has undertaken to meet a target set by the government in 2000 to bring social housing up to a “decent standard” by 2010.

She said the council had been forcing through these works all at once in an effort to meet the target. Works include repairs and replacement of windows, roofs, and improving security for shared entrances.

Ms Scott said that complaints from leaseholders, and suggestions for alternative, cheaper ways to carry out the works, had been ignored.

The major works programme is being handled by Homes for Islington (HfI), the much-criticised Arms Length Management Organisation set up to manage the borough’s housing stock.

A senior spokesman from HfI’s Major Works department said leaseholders were consulted throughout the early stages of planning major works.

He said: “We do listen, but then it’s about how they [leaseholders] are going to pay.”

He defended the controversial process for appointing contractors to carry out the works: rather than the open bidding that used to determined which firms would carry out work on social housing, HfI chooses which firms it will award contracts to.

He said HfI offered leaseholders favourable interest rates when paying their bills and independent debt advice was available for vulnerable leaseholders.

For those who struggle to pay, he said ultimately options include putting a charge on the property or arranging equity release.

He conceded that these serious steps, which effectively relinquish the security of peoples’ homes, could cause enormous concern, and said that he knew of only three people in the borough who had been forced to investigate these options.

Councillor Terry Stacy, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat council and executive member for housing, defended HfI and the council’s housing policy.

He said: “By securing and setting up the ALMO we released over £120 million investment into the council’s housing stock.”

He said the council been “catching up on 30 years worth of underinvestment” by previous Labour councils.

Both Cllr Stacy and the HfI spokesman said that the £40,000 bills for Spa Green leaseholders were due to the fact that the estate is listed by English Heritage and all works carried out have to meet with the original design specifications set by the architect Berthold Lubetkin in the 1940s.

Cllr Stacy says leaseholders should have taken this into account when they bought their properties.

“They should have had a good survey done – they would have been told that.”

He also suggested leaseholders who bought under Mrs Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy were in a comfortable position, now owning flats worth a great deal more than the amount they paid in the 1980s. A two bedroom flat on Spa Green can fetch up to £400,000.

Cllr Stacy said the Liberal Democrat council was committed to the housing issue – former executive members for housing have included a council leaseholder and a council tenant. Cllr Stacy himself is a housing association tenant.

But his words are unlikely to convince campaigners. Referring to the situation for leaseholders in the neighbouring borough of Camden, Mr Potter claimed: “People working for Camden council were told to treat leaseholders as an open cheque book. I don’t doubt that for one second that the same applied to Islington.”

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Community workers praise ASBO police

By Rosie Lavan

ST. GEORGE'S community workers have praised the police Safer Neighbourhood Team for its work tackling anti-social behaviour in the ward – but said there was more to be done.


The Safer Neighbourhood Team, which consists of one sergeant, two PCs and three Community Support Officers, aims to offer local people an approachable point of contact for concerns about crime in the area.

The team hold surgeries twice a month in St George’s and All Saints Church and the Hilldrop Community Centre.


Bob Drinkwater, who runs the Community Centre, said that since the team’s introduction in January this year the police “seem to be back on the right track.”

Although anti-social behaviour in the area is “coming and going” Mr Drinkwater said there had been a “huge improvement” in recent years, and that the SNT were the most recent sign of this.
He said: “Until 1999 or 2000 outside the community centre we had prostitution, cars and motorbikes stolen and set fire to, the building was vandalised as if it was under attack – it was really bad.”


Melanie Toogood, vicar at St George’s and All Saints, said the Safer Neighbourhood Team were “very visible”.

“They have a high profile and do get involved.”


Reverend Toogood said that when she arrived two years ago there were major problems with graffiti and drug abuse outside the church.

Shortly before her arrival the church was broken into and set alight.

But while she acknowledged improvements in anti-social behaviour since the Safer Neighbourhood Team took on the beat, she said the issue had not gone away.

PC John Ireland of the St George’s Safer Neighbourhood Team said that different residents would have different experiences of anti-social behaviour.

“It all comes down to personal perceptions. It’s a very geographical thing as well – some persons will have particular problems and a person in the next street will have no problems at all.”

PC Ireland said the Safer Neighbourhood scheme seemed to be working well, but the problem the police faced at the moment was “getting their message across”.

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Frustrated residents set up Neighbourhood Watch

By Rosie Lavan

DISAPPOINTED residents of St George’s Avenue are taking action after an “ineffective” police response to a spate of burglaries in the street.

Residents have started a Neighbourhood Watch group to raise awareness of the crimes.

There have been eight burglaries in the last three months in the street, which is near Tufnell Park underground station, but police have so far not provided full statistics for the number of break-ins in this area.

Charles Milnes, 45, is a business consultant from St George’s Avenue, and a member of the Neighbourhood Watch steering committee.

He said the response to the burglaries from the local Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) had been unsatisfactory and “not massively effective”.

Milnes said that although he understood that the SNT were stretched, he believed they could have done more to help tackle this problem.

He said: “There are a lot of management and structural issues. They do their best with limited resources, but we as residents and victims of crime can never take no for an answer.

“The police need to put their problems to one side: they are not giving us the absolute practical support we need.”

The SNT was launched in January, tasked with providing targeted responses to local crime and offering residents a visible and approachable point of contact.

Milnes said that the response to the Neighbourhood Watch scheme so far had been very positive. At the first meeting, held in nearby St George’s Church, 49 households were represented, and Milnes expects that between 70 and 100 households will be represented at the next meeting, to be held in December.

Residents have identified some of the problems that they face: the street tends to be quiet during the day as many residents are at work, and burglars take advantage of the structure of the tall Victorian villas, gaining access to properties via the middle front windows.

Police acknowledged that there is a problem with burglary and car theft in St George’s Avenue and surrounding streets.

SNT Officer Andrew Cover said: “It is a hot spot for burglary and theft from motor vehicles.”

Officer Cover said he was aware of the effect that the crime was having on residents. He said there had been occasions when officers had visited the same property more than once a day because of reported burglaries and thefts.

“They [the homeowners] had just given up, they were so frustrated.”

Officer Cover said the SNT regularly patrolled St George’s Avenue and nearby streets, and knew that many of the burglars were from the local area.

“The majority of them are local people that are just passing by – opportunists – and people that know the area well.”

Leafy St George’s Avenue is one of the most desirable and expensive streets in the ward. It was home to Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell until her high-profile split from her husband David Mills earlier this year.

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Mental health carer lashes out at media

By Rosie Lavan

A CARE worker has criticised the media for the negative spin it puts on mental illness.

Ginny Sell, project manager at Hillside Clubhouse on Camden Road, said that the sensational language often used to describe mental ill health damaged the way the public approach the issue.

Hillside Clubhouse is a voluntary sector charity that helps adults with experience of mental illness back into employment.

Ms Sell singled out terms like “lunatic”, “maniac” and “schizo” as examples.

She said: “There’s not much kudos in bringing mental illness in the press down to a mundane level – which it is: statistically one in four people will experience mental ill health.”

While more information is available now about “the archetypes”, stress and depression, Ms Sell said that there was still ignorance about more serious “perceptionally scary” disorders, such as schizophrenia.

Sue Roberts, who handles complaints about coverage of mental health for the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), said that ignorance was often to blame and that inaccuracies in articles caused offence: “Very often things are seen to be discriminatory because they are just plain wrong.”

She said that while the PCC regulates standards of accuracy and ethics in the press, it has no control over the content of newspapers, but that media coverage of mental illness is fairer now than in the past.

“Our observations generally have been that reporting of mental illnesses has very much improved.”

Although she said that the “mental health bogeyman” still reared its head in coverage of crimes committed by the mentally ill, in general “the old taboos seem to have gone and mental illness is not so much [treated as] this scary, frightening thing.”

Ms Roberts was especially optimistic that red top tabloid newspapers have changed their approach to this issue: “That’s really quite a move forward. It is things like that which I think are real markers.”

She cited the “Bonkers Bruno” incident as a turning point, when The Sun was attacked for its insensitive handling of the announcement that Frank Bruno was suffering from depression in 2003. The boxer was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The newspaper faced a deluge of complaints and reversed the line it had taken on the story in favour of more sympathetic coverage.

Ms Roberts said that the increasing number of celebrities and people in the public eye who have spoken about their own mental health problems was helping to tip the balance of public sympathy.

Robert Westhead, a spokesman for Shift, a government-run initiative that challenges the stigma surrounding mental illness, agreed.

Mr Westhead said that well-known faces such as Frank Bruno and Stephen Fry had “made an invaluable contribution to society” by speaking about their mental health problems and raising public awareness.

“They have a massive impact – far more than we can.”

In September this year Stephen Fry presented a series on BBC 2 about manic depression, and spoke candidly about his own experiences as one of the 4 million sufferers of bipolar disorder in Britain.

But Mr Westhead said it was hard for people to avoid words which can cause offence.

“There is an issue about the language of mental health," he said.

"You could be terribly PC about it and say you should never use words like psycho and crazy, but it is a difficult balance to strike because they are part of our language.”

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Council accused of 'gentrifying' Islington

By Rosie Lavan

A LABOUR councillor has accused the Liberal Democrat council executive of deliberately selling houses in an effort to gentrify Islington.

Councillor Paul Smith, deputy leader of the Labour Group, was speaking after the meeting of the executive last week.

He said the executive was “making decisions first before consulting people”, and he attacked its “deliberate policy” of selling council homes – a practice that recalls Conservative government policy in the 1980s.

He said: “They’re selling houses off because they want to gentrify the area.”

Councillor Terry Stacy, of the Liberal Democrat executive, opened the meeting by highlighting the “excellent results” of the recent MORI poll on resident satisfaction with Homes for Islington (HfI), the body which manages housing in the borough on the council’s behalf.

But opposition Labour councillors immediately disputed this, and accused the executive of ignoring the fact that 13,000 people in Islington are on the waiting list for council homes.

HfI was introduced in 2004 as an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) and has been a source of controversy in the borough.

Islington council tenants were surveyed before HfI’s introduction and were promised new kitchens and bathrooms once the organisation was established. But many people were disappointed when it emerged that in order to qualify for the new facilities bathrooms had to be 40 years old and kitchens 30 years old.

Housing is one of the most contested problems in the borough, and while Labour councillors champion council tenants the Liberal Democrats and the local Conservative party are promoting the rights of leaseholders.

During the meeting Mr Stacy proposed the introduction of an organisation for leaseholders, similar to HfI.

Party politics dominated the meeting, and Mr Smith and his colleague and Labour group leader councillor Catherine West were vocal in their opposition to the executive.

During the meeting the council chair, James Kempton, warned Mr Smith that he would be asked to leave if he continued to shout across the chamber.

Labour councillor Wally Burgess, of St George’s, was not at the meeting but defended councillors Smith and West.

He said: “Sometimes the only way to get things across at those meetings is to stand up and shout.”

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Gay youth choir launched

By Rosie Lavan

THE LONDON Gay Men’s Chorus is launching a youth choir in Islington on Saturday.

Sing It! is aimed at 16 – 21 year olds from across the capital and is being supported by a consortium of businesses.

Martin Newman, of the LGMC, said: “There are lots of gay youth groups but there isn’t a gay youth singing group.”

Newman said that although Sing It! is an exciting project it has been difficult to promote.

“It’s not that easy to market to youth to encourage them to come along – it’s something new and it’s maybe a bit scary.”

But he said the choir would be an important place for young gay people to meet, particularly if they have recently come out and are adjusting to the reactions of family and friends.

He said: “We hope it will be a place where people will feel like part of a family, with people that think along similar lines.”

Newman said that when he was coming out 20 years ago gay youth groups tended to be issue-led, whereas the emphasis at Sing It! will be on having a good time.

“When I was coming out myself at 18 there were youth groups for people taking their first steps but it was just discussion, talking about politics. But if you’re going along to have a good sing it’s brilliant.”

Gitika Partington, Sing It!’s musical director, said the choir, which is open to all young people, was “a fabulous idea”.

She said: “It’s really about fighting prejudice. The singing is the important thing.”

“It’s also about creating a place where you feel that you are welcome. That is the reason that I was so happy to be involved.”

Partington said she believed that singing was an ideal way for any group to tackle intolerance.

“Singing does break down barriers because it’s about having a voice. There’s a real sense of empowerment to be had from using your own voice in that way.”

The first Sing It! session takes place on Saturday 15 November in the Church Hall on Crayford Road.

The LGMC is now in its fifteenth year and has performed all over the world. Their Christmas concert will take place on 20 December at the Barbican.

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Conservatives struggle to establish in Islington

By Rosie Lavan

BARELY a year after David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservatives, his party is still struggling to find a voice in Islington.

A core of activists is trying to raise the profile of the Conservatives in this borough, birthplace of New Labour and once home to Tony Blair.

The Tories are known for their absence from local politics. A community worker from north Islington said: “they’re non-existent.”

The party has long lacked the support it needs to get its message across. In an effort to bolster dwindling membership Islington Conservative Association (ICA) was formed recently, merging the local parties from the two constituencies in the borough.

A local activist and regular in the Conservative “blogosphere”, Paul Newman, said the problem is “the sheer indiscipline of the Conservative party.”

“There is a natural Labour constituency that just sits there [in Islington] and is never going to go away,” he said.

Mr Newman, 43, is seeking nomination as a Conservative candidate for the Mayor of London.
Under a Liberal Democrat council and amidst solid Labour sympathy, the Conservatives are campaigning on issues they hope will give them a foothold in the electorate – championing leaseholders, for example.

For deputy chairman of the ICA, Duncan Webster, his own generation of recent graduates – feeling for the first time the full force of council tax, living costs and the congestion charge – are a key demographic.

Mr Webster, 26, chairs Islington Conservative Futures (ICF) which organises social events for young members.

He admitted they are battling with an image problem of the traditional Young Conservative but said ICF is “a good way of attracting unpoliticised young people in an unpoliticised way”.

Despite a 200 per cent gain in the share of the vote at the local elections this year, neither of the Islington constituencies are in line for David Cameron’s A-List treatment at the next general election: they are not considered to be ‘winnable seats’.

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