Barely believable Labour housing scandal in Haringey - Lives torn apart and assets lost

Fri Jan 20 23:57:26 GMT 2017

Lives torn apart and assets lost: this is what a 
Labour privatisation would mean

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/lives-torn-apart-assets-labour-privatisation-north-london-haringey

The battle under way in the capital should 
trouble us all. Proponents call it innovation, 
but I say its an assault on the poor

http://tlio.org.uk/haringey-lives-torn-apart-and-assets-lost-this-is-what-a-labour-privatisation-would-mean/
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/lives-torn-apart-assets-labour-privatisation-north-london-haringey#img-1>
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/https://www.theguardian.com/profile/adityachakrabortty>Aditya 
Chakrabortty Thursday 19 January 2017 19.02 
GMTLast modified on Friday 20 January 2017 15.59 GMT

Abattle broke out on Tuesday in one of the 
scruffier parts of north London. It didnt look 
much: a few dozen placard wavers outside 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Haringey>Haringey 
civic centre, and a restive public heckling 
councillors as they debated big plans for their 
future. But this is a battle that concerns all of 
us. At its heart is a programme that is among the 
most audacious Ive ever seen. Haringey wants to 
privatise huge swaths of public property: family 
homes, school buildings, its biggest library. 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/http://www.haringey.gov.uk/news/haringey-council-one-step-close-delivering-2bn-regeneration-programme>All 
of it will be stuck in a private fund worth £2bn.

It comes with huge risks. It will demolish 
precious social housing, turf out families and 
rip apart communities. It will hand democratic 
control to a massive private entity. The 20-year 
plan is unprecedented, agreed backbench 
councillors. They voted to slam on the brakes. 
But if theyre ignored and the plan goes through, 
it will form a blueprint for an altered capital. 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/https://www.theguardian.com/uk/london>London 
will lurch closer towards becoming a playground 
for speculators, a dormitory for professionals, 
and off-limits both to the working class and to public dissent.

This may be the first youve heard of it  the 
Haringey development vehicle has scored barely a 
mention outside the local and trade press. Odd, 
given how large it is, and how vital to council 
leader Claire Kober, who is also chair of the 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/>London 
Councils group.

Having grown up nearby, in Edmonton, I know the 
problems that fester in parts of Haringey

Kober claims that a joint venture with a 
mega-developer is the sure route to 5,000 new 
houses and a sparkling town centre. To which the 
obvious question is: homes for whom? Ive been 
through the paperwork, had dozens of 
conversations with councillors and locals, and 
put a series of questions to the council. And 
its clear they wont be for the 8,000 Haringey 
families on the waiting list for a council house. 
If anything, this plan will add to the number who 
are homeless. Not by accident but by design: the 
plans are explicit about making accommodation in 
this London borough even more expensive.

Why would a Labour council even think of doing 
this to its own voters? Because the 
hyper-ambitious leadership is still gripped by 
zombie Blairism and its mania for innovation. 
And because Kober and her allies appear to 
believe the best way to relieve an area of 
poverty is to kick out the poor people who live 
there. Or, 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/http://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/documents/s81584/151028%20HDV%20APPENDIX%20A1%20-%20Business%20Case%20public%20version.pdf>as 
they call it, creating mixed and balanced communities.

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Having grown up next door, in Edmonton, I know 
the problems that fester in parts of Haringey: 
the death of light industry leading to a jobs 
drought, and some of the worst deprivation in 
Britain. Theres a reason Tottenham was ground 
zero for the 2011 riots. Add to that the 
impossible municipal maths of delivering year 
upon year of Westminster-mandated spending cuts 
while trying not to drown in a historic housing 
crisis. So many needs, so little money.

Faced with these intractables, Kober and her 
circle have decided the way to fix Tottenham is 
to turn it into somewhere else. So they hire Nick 
Walkley, who at Barnet handed nearly everything 
his council did 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/01/cameron-shrink-state-barnet-future-local-services>to 
the giant outsourcing company Capita. They throw 
public money at starchitects 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/03/architect-john-mcaslan-studio-tottenham>to 
get them to set up a branch in the borough. They 
blow the annual running cost of a daycare centre 
on a redesign of the council logo. Haringey 
London, it now reads, with an undisguised 
spatial neediness. This is the kind of 
regeneration mindset that cant see a greasy 
spoon without wishing it were a Starbucks.

And Kober gets cosy with the property industry. 
Developers spend tens of thousands bringing her 
and the 
team<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/haringey_council_participation_i> 
over to property fairs in Cannes. And there, 
among the yachts, the council 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/http://www.propertyweek.com/news/six-in-the-running-for-%C2%A32bn-haringey-regeneration/5079924.article>announces 
the shortlist of private-sector partners for this development vehicle.

A gorgeous art deco town hall is flogged to Hong 
Kong investors to turn into a boutique hotel and 
luxury apartments  with just four affordable 
homes. Locals are furious, and Labour councillors 
rebel. The chief whip, Adam Jogee, ticks off 
colleagues for their entirely unacceptable 
behaviour. Jogee, by the way, works for a 
lobbying firm that represents two of the three 
corporates on that development vehicle shortlist. 
That same lobbyist 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/outcry_over_haringey_labour_plans_to_privatise_2bn_of_council_estates_and_land_1_4825626>dined 
Kober and her heads of finance and housing no fewer than 13 times.

Analysis The radical model fighting the housing 
crisis: property prices based on income

Community land trusts battle gentrification by 
linking house prices to local wages rather than 
the market rate. But can this growing movement 
for permanently affordable homes really ease Britains housing crisis?

Read more

Im not accusing these politicians of corruption. 
But they seem to have such a corroded sense of 
ethics that they can no longer discern inappropriate behaviour.

Then they start on this new development vehicle. 
The councils business case for it is too 
important a job for any local official: a 
property consultancy is hired in. As one might 
expect of policy written by the real-estate 
industry, the document contains 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/http://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/documents/s81584/151028%20HDV%20APPENDIX%20A1%20-%20Business%20Case%20public%20version.pdf>hardly 
a word on social housing. Indeed, the council 
tells me it has no targets for building social 
housing through this new venture, just 
affordable units. And as everyone knows, affordable means its opposite.

As for the joint venture, only a few councils 
have ever tried them. That business case doesnt 
mention the failures, 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/13375556.Council_scraps_developer_deal_to_take_control_of_Taberner_House_plans/>such 
as in Croydon, south London. It doesnt mention 
how 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/tunbridge_wells_regeneration_company_dissolved_after_four_years_1_1694512>the 
venture in Tunbridge Wells collapsed, 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/https://www.stanyer.org.uk/news/regeneration-company-costs-revealed>leaving 
locals to pick up the tab.

Other things not mentioned: democratic 
accountability and the rights of council tenants. 
Whole estates will be razed to the ground, and 
the council confirmed to me that the people who 
live there are not guaranteed the right to return 
on the same tenancy contracts.

Not that the tenants know any of this. The first 
council estate to go into the vehicle will be 
Northumberland Park: close to the Lea Valley 
waterways and blessed with good transport links 
into central London. Such attributes make it far 
too good for mere council tenants, of course. But 
last week, when I asked residents if they knew 
their homes were set to be demolished, some stared at me in wonder.

<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/https://ppcrassociates.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/survey-report-sept-2016.pdf>Haringeys 
own consultants admit: There is very little 
sound knowledge of the proposed regeneration in Northumberland Park.

I keep thinking about one couple: Sirajul and 
Moriam Islam. He drives a school bus, shes an 
assistant in a nearby special-needs school. They 
bought their flat from the council 30 years ago 
and have spent years doing it up. Now theyll be 
turfed out with a sum that will not buy them 
another flat in the area. They talk about seeing 
out their final years in a strange new town, 
among people they dont know. Like living in a 
prison, sighs Moriam. Then Sirajul tells me 
about his boy whos training to be a doctor, and 
his girl whos about to start as a teacher. I 
always told them: We might be working-class, but 
you can do anything. The mixed and balanced and 
aspirational community Kober and co are seeking 
is right under their noses, if only theyd see it.

This has been the story of central Londons 
transformation over the past decade: clearing of 
the commons, dismissal of the little people, 
deference towards developers and the replacement 
of reality with property-marketing fiction. If 
Haringey implements these proposals then outer 
London is next. Which is why I believe this 
battle is one that the rest of us cant sit out. 
Enough of forced gentrification. Enough of 
privatising public assets. Enough of that rancid 
New Labour contempt for its own voters. This has to stop.

 The picture caption was amended on 20 January 
2017 because an earlier version said it showed 
Tottenham town hall. It is a picture of what was 
originally a gas showroom, and it later contained 
some of Haringey councils offices. The building 
was badly damaged in the riots and reopened as an enterprise centre.

So much emphasis is placed on select Jewish 
participation in Bormann companies that when 
Adolf Eichmann was seized and taken to Tel Aviv 
to stand trial, it produced a shock wave in the 
Jewish and German communities of Buenos Aires. 
Jewish leaders informed the Israeli authorities 
in no uncertain terms that this must never happen 
again because a repetition would permanently 
rupture relations with the Germans of Latin 
America, as well as with the Bormann 
organization, and cut off the flow of Jewish 
money to Israel. It never happened again, and the 
pursuit of Bormann quieted down at the request of 
these Jewish leaders. He is residing in an 
Argentinian safe haven, protected by the most 
efficient German infrastructure in history as 
well as by all those whose prosperity depends on his well-being.
<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fspitfirelist.com%2Fbooks%2Fmartin-bormann-nazi-in-exile%2F&h=eAQErj17O>http://spitfirelist.com/books/martin-bormann-nazi-in-exile/   
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