The Eastend Eye Winter/Spring 2013 Free! The Eastend Eye p2 p4 p4 The Bedroom Tax Social Housing Defecit About the Eye Analysis and comment on this unfair tax False promises for social housing in the Find out more about the Eye and how to on ‘under occupiers’ East End contact and support us. Commonwealth Games Village whose future? Housing A Housing Legacy? Special Playing games with homes and lives This special issue investigates areas’ through land speculation, Games - not something to be housing conditions in the East End rent increases and the cost of overwhelmed about when in a period of housing crisis. What’s living. All this, of course, is Glasgow has lost over 60,000 happening with the Games Village? justified with bullshit about the social rented homes since 1991. The Clyde Gateway regeneration ‘common good’ and ‘legacy’. News has also come to light promises 10,000 homes, but what The Athletes Village in that the second phase of the kind of homes and who for? What Dalmarnock, currently under development – 700 homes on impact will ‘the bedroom tax’ and phased construction for the Games top of the first phase – is not housing benefit changes have on 2014, is allegedly a sign of great guaranteed to go ahead, which may East Enders? How are Compulsory progress in Dalmarnock and mean further cuts to social rented Purchase Orders (CPOs) being Glasgow. But is this really the case? housing at the Village site. This used to displace the poor? We know that only 300 out of a total makes a mockery of the claim that Large-scale ‘mega-events’ and of 1,469 homes will be available as the Athletes Village is somehow ‘regeneration’ are now routinely “socially rented”. Subtracting the an asset for local people and is used for aggressive property 197 social sector homes that were merely “on loan” to the Games. development and gentrification, lost last year through right to buy If you want to know what’s really increasing property and tax bases, and demolition, this represents a happening in the East End, read on. and inevitably forcing less well- commitment of 103 social sector off people out of ‘regenerated homes from the Commonwealth 2 The Eastend Eye Winter/Spring 2013 The Bedroom Tax No alternative for ‘under occupiers’ —Demo!— Saturday 30th March Assemble George Square 11am March to Glasgow Green 12am Housing benefit reforms will put which has fallen by around 48% others have already gathered to Glasgow residents at risk of rent from September 1997 to September discuss a ‘bedroom tax’ campaign. arrears, eviction and potential 2011. 300,000 council houses have Similar meetings have taken place homelessness. Social housing been lost nationally in the last across the UK, with urgent local residents deemed to have an extra 15 years (150,000 sales to sitting responses to the upcoming changes. bedroom - or be “under occupying” tenants, 100,000 to stock transfer, The coalition government have - will be hit with a 14 to 25% 50,000 demolished). Glasgow has implemented many controversial reduction in housing benefit from no remaining council housing. austerity changes. This is just April 2013. Local residents will Such statistics highlight a deficit another example of an unfair either have to meet the extra costs in housing provision for Glasgow benefit reform targeting those themselves or attempt to downsize residents and also undermine with little or no alternative. The through local housing associations. recent SNP boasts about the decision to cut housing benefit Downsizing may not be possible abolition of homelessness in is not supported by a sufficient for many though. Research has Scotland. housing stock to accommodate shown that there is an insufficient The bedroom tax will result in those who will be unable to stock of one-bedroom homes the majority of “under occupying” maintain rent payments and find throughout the UK to provide residents being expected to pay themselves at risk of eviction from for those who require them an extra £624 per year in rent. their homes. The policy is bound and the Scottish Government Solicitor Mike Dailly argued to force residents into the private has conceded that homelessness recently that the policy will property market, which is similarly could be a consequence of such cause “misery, stress and serious unforgiving towards residents on changes. This admission further worry for many tenants, and low incomes. Meetings are already highlights the vast gulf between extra administrative costs and taking place in Glasgow, and across housing need and actual provision problems for social landlords”. the UK. within Scotland - and particularly He highlighted how the changes As Housing Charity, Shelter Glasgow - which has been hit with will be likely to drive people into Scotland report, there are fewer continual cuts to public housing cramped and poor houses similar social homes for rent in Scotland since the 1980s. to nineteenth century slum than at any time since 1959. The This reduction is most conditions. Dailly was speaking need for renewed campaigning on noticeable in terms of the number at a recent meeting in Govan public housing is pressing. of council houses in Scotland, where the local community and The Eastend Eye Winter/Spring 2013 3 Social Housing De!cit False promises for social housing in the East End Artists Impression; Commonwealth Village Clyde Gateway Urban Regeneration property, and who will eventually Given the property and business Company (URC) was established profit? interests of those on the Clyde in 2007, to cover the areas of We have requested this Gateway board, we are deeply Bridgeton, Dalmarnock, Farme information from the Board of sceptical about social housing Cross, Shawfield and Rutherglen. Directors of Clyde Gateway URC. promises in the East End. Chair of It is a coalition of interests An initial response from Jim the board is Neil McDonald, who comprised of city councillors Clark, a Senior Manager, admitted is also Chair of construction firm from Glasgow City Council and the figure of 10,000 was made up to Barr and Wray. Other members South Lanarkshire Council, and get people to sign up to the Clyde of the board have day jobs with representatives from business and Gateway URC, and will now be Scottish Enterprise, Cruden construction firms. subject to re-definition, and that it Estates, UK Steel Enterprise, Clyde Gateway is responsible will take up to a year for a revised Namana Properties - the property for “spearheading” a 20 year regen figure to be published. and business interests are clear. programme which regularly This is deeply discouraging in With a budget approaching makes the following claims in the context of Glasgow’s housing £2 billion, the Clyde Gateway promotional literature: 20,000 new crisis. Between 1991 and 2008, project - lasting a projected 20 odd jobs, 10,000 new homes, 400,000 social rented housing in the city years - should surely address some square metres of new business was reduced (mainly through of the massive gaps left in public space, £1.5 billion of private sector demolition and right-to-buy) by housing building and maintenance investment. 60,000 homes, while the private following privatisation, instead We have attempted to extract sector grew by 67,500 homes: a we know it will only add to more detail on the claim that massive swing to private housing. the property portfolio of land 10,000 new homes will be built in By 2018 private sector housing management and investment East Glasgow by 2030. There is no is estimated to take up to 70% firms, making no significant substantive evidence available in of Glasgow’s total, with social difference to the housing crisis Clyde Gateway literature on this rented housing falling a further as working class people and the issue. Where will those homes be? 14,000 homes. Together with unemployed face it. What tenure mix? How was the housing benefits cuts, the dreaded figure of 10,000 arrived at? Who ‘bedroom tax’, and ever-expanding will be able to afford these houses? waiting lists, the housing crisis is Who will own the land and escalating. 4 The Eastend Eye Spring 2012 East End Eye Online: For the Greater Good? Keep up to date with the latest news and comment: Displacement - by any means necessary http://gamesmonitor2014. wordpress.com/ Compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) were £8million, then sold it to the Council for established in post-war planning acts to £17,000,000 in 2008 for a £9million profit! Donate deal with the problem of profiteering slum But while these developers ‘came to landlords in areas of redevelopment and new an agreement’ with the Council, no such If you would like to make a delicacies were afforded the Jaconelli family public housing construction. But socially donation via BACS or set up a progressive legislation to curb private who were brutally evicted by over 100 police landlords has been perverted to benefit land officers through CPO for refusing to accept standing order, please reference and property developers at the expense of a paltry £30,000 for their home. This is ‘East End Eye’ and use the poorer working class residents - all in the the reason why the family remained in a following bank details. derelict home on a demolished estate without name of ‘the greater good’. The Burgh Angel; CPOs are now used systematically to services for six years. dispossess and displace people from their After resourceful campaigning and Barclays Bank plc, homes and livelihoods in a direct transfer of wide support, the Jaconelli’s have now been Account # : 23046974; property rights to the development industry. offered £90,000 in compensation. This is Sort Code : 203370 Dalmarnock (the site of the Commonwealth closer to the market value of their home, Games Village development) is a glaring but still bears no relation to the costs borne example.