27 February 2009
By David Williams
A housing chief has warned that the government’s subsidy system for council properties could provide a ‘godsend’ to the far Right by forcing his council into an unpopular stock transfer.
Ken Jones, head of housing strategy at the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, said the council was cutting services to meet annual multimillion pound payments to the national housing revenue account.
He estimates the money will run out in two years, leaving the council with no legal option but to transfer its stock to a housing association.
Jones fears the British National Party, which already holds 12 seats on the council, could use this to harness local anger and make gains.
More than 80% voted against a transfer of council housing stock the last time the borough balloted tenants on the issue.
‘Barking and Dagenham is in a desperate hole,’ he told a CIPFA London division seminar on the effects of recession on local economies on February 25.
‘This year, £17m from the poorest people in the borough is going into the national system. The year before it was £14m.’
‘In two years we go into deficit. If we had to go to ballot on a stock transfer, the BNP would play every filthy card imaginable – it would be a godsend to them.’
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