Councillors back housing transfer

Many council homes need urgent repairs

Labour councillors in Glasgow have agreed to recommend the transfer of council housing to a city-wide housing association.

The new Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) would have a £4bn budget over the next 20 years.

The move has to be approved by the city council's tenants in a ballot, likely to be held in January.

A meeting of the Labour councillors, who hold a massive majority in the city, agreed to recommend the transfer which will now be passed by the local authority's policy and rescources committee.

Glasgow City Council leader Charles Gordon said the new deal in housing would change the face of the city.

Charles Gordon: "Change the face of the city"

Mr Gordon said that a meeting of Labour councillors on Monday was the 29th occasion in the past two years that the housing stock transfer has been discussed, but stressed that the deliberations had been worthwhile.

He said that a package is on offer which amounts to more than £5.5bn of funding for city housing.

The GHA has a budget of £4bn, there is a debt write-off of £1bn and almost £½bn is available for building new houses.

Mr Gordon said: "I am very hopeful that in a year from now the investment will start to flow in their neighbourhood, in their street, possibly even in their home - and that investment will flow for many years.

"And a great bonus will be that maybe their sons and daughters will be involved in working to deliver that investment.

"It will change the face of Glasgow."

I am very hopeful that in a year from now the investment will start to flow in their neighbourhood, in their street, possibly even in their home.

Glasgow Council leader Charles Gordon

However, the stock transfer has to be approved by Glasgow's 80,000 council tenants.

The ballot is likely to be held at the end of January with the result likely be known by the middle of February.

The transfer of council stock to a community housing association is supported by the Scottish Executive and the Westminster government.

Ministers argue that the housing association model gives tenants a greater say in management, rent, repair and modernisation issues.

They also say that it will free councils from the mountain of Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) debt which many have built up while managing homes.

Community ownership

But the executive's promotion of housing stock transfer into community ownership has been met with opposition in some quarters.

The Scottish National Party and the Scottish Socialists claim it would be better to undertake a public sector housing finance programme.

In Glasgow a number of tenants have come together to form the Campaign Against the Housing Stock Transfer (CAHST).

The group's chairman, Sean Clerkin, told BBC News Online Scotland the policy represented "privatisation of public sector housing which will lead to higher rents for tenants within five years".