Growing Mushrooms In The Bedroom

One of the problem of being designated a pathfinder area and subject to demolition is the uncertainty and blight it brings to ordinary hard working people. Tenant X is known to the Saltwell and Bensham Residents Association. Tenant X must be called that because all tenants fear not being re-housed by Gateshead Council if they speak out. This tenant faces a really big problem because they are located in the demolition zone. The landlord wont repair the property because it faces demolition yet it needs repair and renovation. It is so damp fungi are growing on the wall and environmental health have condemned the property as uninhabitable.

You would think that Gateshead Council's 35 strong "enforcement team" would be forcing the landlord to do repairs and restore the property to a habitable condition but they have not bothered to call around. The problem is that once your street is designated for demolition the blight sets in and standards fall. The weakest and poorest are left with no housing choice and, under pathfinder, no one to complain to because the council has an interest in preserving blight and apparent abandonment as a way of pressurising people to sell.

Thus we have a peculiar circumstance where the 21st Century Rackman landlords are welcome in pathfinder areas and are aided by the non-action of those whose job it should be to enforce the law.

Leeds Model Development Is Demolished

Just 6 years after being built a timber framed crescent of houses in Leeds is to be demolished. Hailed as the future of modern building the £60,000 prefab housing could not stand up to a mild English winter. The 46 residents were evacuated last year.

Demolition due to being structurally unsound.

Yet here in Gateshead homes that have stood for 100 years are under threat of demolition for the sole reason that they are not new. Despite all the new housing gimmicks and design fashions of the last 50 years nothing can replace well built property. Instead of demolishing older houses in Gateshead priority ought to be improvement and refurbishment.

Of course the problem with improvement is that it doesn't provide cash to hard up millionaire property developers!


Source: The Guardian 30/1/2007

Residents Ask Too Many Questions

In a democracy your elected representatives are supposed to represent you. However in the case of the demolition of 440 homes in Saltwell and Bensham all the local councillors approve of demolition. Unfortunately in Gateshead the council has a cabinet system by which a small group of elite councillors make most policy decisions in secret leaving the council meeting simply a rubber stamping process.

Buried deep within Gateshead Council's standing orders is a provision for ordinary citizens to ask questions. For all practical purposes this is the only time that councillors are asked to account for their action in public. Saltwell and Bensham Residents Association gave 3 days notice of their recent set of questions, as required by the rules, and then had them put to the council last Thursday.

Faced with actually answering straight questions from their constituents the Leader of Gateshead Council claimed that all the questions had already been asked previously, that too many questions were being asked and that they (the council) hadn't been given enough notice of the questions. The obvious logical inconsistency being that if the questions had already been asked it should have required no time at all to provide answers.

The Leader's anger was obvious. His body language said - how dare these mere voters come and question councillors who know whats best for Gateshead. Here was a man with a CBE now being addressed by ordinary people and he didn't like it one bit.

Few people would recognise Gateshead Council as a democratic forum. Power has led to a single minded approach to local government in which those people who ask questions or put alternative views are the enemy. Even when those people are constituents and voters.

All Options Lead To Demolition

Pathfinder is more than a renewal project it's an industry. Money for old rope. Councils feel unable to recommend demolition for fear of the electoral consequences so the cover they use is expensive housing consultants. The same ones move from project to project using the same tired old maps, drive-by valuations, and complete ignorance of the communities they consult with.

Residents of Mexborough have found out the lesson that we learned in Saltwell and Bensham. Basically you are presented with 3 options A, B and C. These equate to some demolition, more demolition and a lot of demolition. You also get told that the plans are about renovation, that they will cure all social ills, and that you will get lots of money for your old home.

After the consultation the council announces that residents have voted for demolition and then the residents look at each other in amazement not realising that all the options meant demolition.

The consultants pocket the cash, the council gets a massive cash injection from government, millionaire property developers get prime land cheaply and, according to last years' report by the Rowntree Trust, most property owners lose about £30,000 selling their (now blighted) homes to the council.

Demolition is more than a policy it is now a systematic process without any real community involvement. Target and cash driven it is a process that runs uncontrolled throughout the north. The only reason it gets little press attention nationally is because it is happening in the north and reporters would have to leave London to report it properly.


Link
Doncaster Local Newspaper

Sign the E-Petition Against Pathfinder

An electronic petition against pathfinder has been established at the Number 10 website. Like all petitions it needs you to sign it with your email address.

Help oppose pathfinder and sign the e-petition go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Stop-Pathfinder/#detail

Link
Epetition