Middlesbrough latest demolitions illegal

[BoroBot]

I SEE A WHITE FLAG ON THE MINISTER’S HOUSING BULLDOZER
Charles Clover, Sunday Times, 28th October 2012

If your faith in this government has been knocked, prepare for it to be knocked again. For I can reveal that another legal shambles, not so very different from the West Coast main line fiasco, is slouching towards a denouement. Let’s call it Pathfindershambles, or housingshambles. I have picked up signals that the government’s defence is on its knees in a High Court action in which it has been, incredibly, defending Labour’s discredited Pathfinder regeneration scheme to demolish perfectly good homes in northern cities.

Grant Shapps, now Tory party chairman but then housing minister, told the Commons last year that he had killed off Pathfinder. But, inadvertently, he has let the scheme go on. A small charity that claims Shapps and Eric Pickles, the community secretary, acted incompetently and unlawfully appears to be gaining the upper hand in the court case. This was a ministerial decision and someone should resign. You may not hear calls for this from either government or opposition benches, because both are deeply compromised.

The Pathfinder programme, devised for John Prescott by Professor Brendan Nevin, was meant to address the supposedly inevitable emptying of great northern cities such as Manchester and Liverpool, which would lead to
derelict boarded-up terraces. Final proof that Nevin got the trends wrong came last summer when census returns revealed that these cities have been growing for the first time since 1945. Liverpool’s population is up 5.5% and Manchester’s has risen 19% since 2001.

Pathfinders advocates asserted that the market had failed and housing was in over-supply, so what was needed was fewer, better homes. People were told they would see a transformation. What happened was that buildings were bulldozed, neighbourhoods torn apart and families trapped in abandoned streets.

Shapps admitted the policy’s failure in the Commons on November 24th last year. He also criticised the demonisation of the traditional British terrace by the previous government. He identified the perverse incentive for councils and housing associations to run down areas to build up land-banks they could hand over to their developer cronies, causing enormous damage to our heritage. He told the Commons he was ending Whitehall’s obsession with demolition, taking steps to refurbish empty homes and winding up Pathfinder.

Then Shapps did something astonishing. He signed off a further £35m of his department’s money, which brought into play £35m of council money – apparently without reading the small print of what this proposed “exit strategy” entailed: the destruction of 5,000 additional homes and the continuation of the most controversial, locally opposed, schemes: in the Klondyke area of Bootle,
and the Welsh Streets of Liverpool. When the charity, SAVE Britain’s Heritage objected, Shapps and his officials said that, while technically unlawful as Shapps had not been informed of the demolition proposals, their decision could not be quashed as the state has no power to demand repayment from councils. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them not to send the cheque. Then Shapps organised a photo opportunity to say he had saved Ringo Starr’s birthplace, one of 16 homes saved out of 400 perfectly good terraces that will be knocked down.

So the zombie policy, Pathfinder, staggered on, evicting old ladies from homes in which they were born and blighting half empty terraces that might otherwise have found buyers. All a department spokesman would tell me on Friday was “We are not yet in a position to confirm whether we are, or we are not, going ahead with [defending] this case.” Privately I gather the department’s defence is suffering.

Why did Pickles authorise spending taxpayers’ money on fighting a court case about upholding his department’s promises to parliament? What does this case say about Shapps fitness to be party chairman, already damaged by the disclosure that he has used a pseudonym to conduct business affairs? Why did Shapps and Pickles send the television architect, George Clarke to try and save the Welsh Streets only for him to be strung along by cynical housing association apparatchiks?

Ministers alas have no idea what to do about Prescott’s baleful legacy of derelict streets, in which many vulnerable people still live. David Cameron went to Pathfinder areas in opposition and said he was baffled by the policy. What has he done? George Osborne, the Chancellor, says housing and growth are priorities, so why is he spending a penny of our money knocking down houses and not bashing his opponent Ed Balls for his disgraceful part in wasting £2.2 billion on Pathfinder? Brave local groups have devised private finance schemes and alternative designs that would refurbish the Welsh Streets and parts of Bootle at no cost to the public. So far Pickles has washed his hands of them.

If Pontius Pickles wants true localism, he needs to help local people help themselves and stamp his authority on mega-councils who don’t care about residents and build up land banks to get power and money. Pickles should use his powers to make councils sell homes to ordinary people provided they do them up. A good street has many owners, not one.

[BoroBot]

Dear Middlesbrough Council,
I would like to request the following documents under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (FOIA):
A copy of Middlesbrough Council's Housing Market Renewal Transition
Fund Bid, as submitted to the Department of Communities and Local
Government.
I would be grateful if you could acknowledge receipt of this email.
Yours sincerely,

Dear Mr ######
REF NO: 2793.1.1.
I am writing to confirm that Middlesbrough Council has now completed its
search for the information you requested on 19 January 2012.
In your request you asked for the following information:
I would like to request the following documents under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA):
A copy of Middlesbrough Council's Housing Market Renewal Transition Fund
Bid, as submitted to the Department of Communities and Local Government.
Response: A copy of the information requested is attached below.
If you have any queries about this letter, please do not hesitate to
contact me direct on (01642) 729696/729698 or email
[Middlesbrough Council request email]. Please remember to quote the reference number
shown above in any future communications.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/1 ... T.pdf.html

[BoroBot]

Middlesbrough bid documents for pathfinder transitional funding were a
matter of public record requested by FOI and revealed at:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/h ... ing-245626
Middlesbrough was part of the Tees Valley Living Pathfinder.
Exit strategy fro Gresham quote: page 4 of attach pdf
'Programme Exit Strategy - Gresham Bid for relocation funding'
HMR Transition Fund resources are sought to enable the acquisition of
the remaining 46
properties and the DEMOLITION of a further 198 properties in Phase 1
of the project (see
Appendix 2, Plan 1). All of the properties to be acquired are in
blocks where more than 50% of the homes are empty and the resources
will enable the remaining residents to be appropriately re-housed. A
block of 67 properties is to be retained for a private sector led
refurbishment scheme. The cleared site will be grassed over until
assembly of Phase 2 is complete.'
ALL through the document clearly states demolition.
there is a letter from the Mayor of
Middlesbrough Ray Mallon reaffirming that he/they will continue with
there existing pathfinder regeneration plans ----

[BoroBot]

Read More

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teess ... -31895662/

http://www.ehnetwork.org.uk/newsitem/ju ... ition-fund

http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2012 ... onal-fund/

[BoroBot]

Let the demagogy commence.
October 19, 2012 by rocklifferover

If Middlesbrough gets an MP who ISN’T Labour, then suddenly we will have someone in an influential position to start calling into question decisions made by our Labour-led council and our Labour-backed mayor. Someone to start making noises about the £14.8 million loan taken out by Mallon and his Labour-controlled executive, at the expense of the Teesside taxpayer, to continue his destruction of Gresham, now that the government has told them that they broke the Law when they used money earmarked for ‘refurbishment’ to knock down houses. A non-Labour MP will place Mallon and his council firmly under the microscope, and this is something that, in time, would render his position as mayor untenable. And in Rays own words, although he doesn’t ‘have to be here’, he wants the full money for the job while he is. Which tells you what he really, really wants for Middlesbrough.

Read More http://bettermiddlesbrough.wordpress.co ... -commence/

[BoroBot]

Good for SAVE - for Pickles to spend millions on eviction and demolition during a financial and housing crisis is absolutely criminal. Why is he fighting to defend New Labour's discredited Pathfinder?

Neighbourhoods of terraced houses outside Liverpool's arbitrary demolition red lines are perfectly sustainable, and some are even thriving. Check out the prices on Lucerne Street - half a mile from the state sponsored vandalism of Princes Park demolition zone, identical in design and size to the famous Welsh Streets:

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/proper ... t/l17-8xt/

Channel 4's 'Property Scandal' gave a good overview of this ongoing scandal the other night:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the- ... candal/4od

[BoroBot]

09/11/2012 | By Gavriel Hollander

Coalition will not fight judicial review into £35.5m market renewal transition fund
Government backs down on demolitions

The government is on the verge of conceding defeat in a court battle over plans to bulldoze more than 5,000 empty homes.
Lawyers acting for the government have written to campaign group SAVE’s solicitors setting out the terms under which it is willing to concede defeat, having admitted the decision to grant £35.5 million funding was ‘unlawful’.

SAVE may now seek to block a portion of the public money dished out to 13 councils as part of the housing market renewal transition fund.
The money from the Communities and Local Government department, which was matched by councils to create a £71 million pot, was announced by former housing minister Grant Shapps last November.

It was intended to help the areas worst hit by the axeing of the previous Labour government’s £2.25 billion HMR pathfinder programme.
SAVE was granted the right for a judicial review into the distribution of the money after it emerged the majority of the funding was being used to finance further demolition work, despite the minister saying he wanted a ‘clean break’ from a policy of large-scale demolition projects.

SAVE wants the government to refurbish empty homes.

Clem Cecil, director of the group, said: ‘We’d like to see the money clawed back and spent on what it was intended to be spent on.’

SAVE has written to communities secretary Eric Pickles urging him to threaten the use of ‘public request to order disposals’ which force councils to sell empty buildings.

The government is understood to be reluctant to try to recover funding as the majority has either already been spent or allocated.
SAVE’s lawyers found that just under half of the £35.5 million has already been spent.

Ann O’Byrne, executive member for housing at Liverpool Council, said the city’s £18.5 million of matched-funding had been allocated. ‘Any attempts to claw back this funding would be misguided and undemocratic,’ she added.

A freedom of information request from charity Empty Homes found councils intended to demolish 5,125 homes with the funding. An Inside Housing survey found fewer than 200 homes have so far been demolished by nine of the 13 councils.

The CLG was unable to comment on matters subject to legal proceedings.
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/legal/go ... 75.article