On the 13th January there was a full City Council meeting where Sue Pearson, your local Common Councillor, proposed a motion that the repairs programme for all the City Estates be accelerated by using some of the City’s financial reserves. 

The repairs programme is moving incredibly slowly even by the City’s standards with the last 5 year plan being inadequately funded while the Estates decay and tenants live in unacceptable conditions. 

The City has a fund called City Cash which has reserves of £2.6 billion. They have dedicated £50 million of this money to support small business during the pandemic but nothing to support residents. £37 million of this money has not been spent and Sue suggested that, as a start, it might be a good idea to redirect this to Estate repairs.

At the Council meeting discussion of the motion was cut short by a point of order and the the motion to speed up repair of your Estates was lost by 75 votes to 19. A supportive councillor, Graeme Harrower, has written a report of the meeting at the link below:

https://gbr01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fr...

He has also, usefully, made a record of which way councillors voted and perhaps electors would like to think about this when casting their votes in the elections in March. 80% of councillors are elected by businesses and 20% by residents. This split is reflected in the vote.

Public call for the City of London Corporation to respect the law

We, the City councillors named below, call on the City Corporation to pay its social housing tenants a full refund of a profit that it (and a number of other local authorities) made on “water reselling” from 2001 to 2019 following a ruling by the courts that this profit was unlawful.

The City Corporation should have taken the lead in paying a full refund, because it:

- prides itself on upholding the rule of law,

- is the wealthiest local authority in the country, and

- has the smallest number of social housing tenants. 

But it hasn’t done that. While many other local authorities - including Kensington and Chelsea (https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/housing/rent-employment-and-financial-support/water-charges-rebate), Southwark (https://www.southwark.gov.uk/housing/water-refunds) and Lambeth(https://beta.lambeth.gov.uk/housing/council-tenants/overpayment-thames-water-charges/how-credit-calculated) - have been paying full refunds plus interest for some time, the City has yet to make any announcement about what it will (or, it seems, won’t) do. 

The issue of water charge refunds appeared in the agendas of the meetings of three City committees over the last nine months: the Housing Sub-Committee in May, the Community and Children’s Services Committee in September and the governing Policy and Resources Committee in November. Although each committee discussed the issue, no announcement has yet been made. The issue is expected to appear again in the agenda of the meeting of the Policy and Resources Committee on 20 January.…

CITY OF LONDON CORPORATION FAILS ITS RESIDENTS

I've called on the City of London Corporation to use some of its £2.6 billion quasi-public “City's Cash" to fund an acceleration of the renovation of its social housing estates, which - due to decades of neglect - are in poor condition.

My call has been rejected by the leadership. The Corporation is happy to spend what is needed to put up new non-residential buildings within a short time frame, but refuses to spend what is needed to complete the renovation of its social housing estates within a similar time frame, or indeed any time frame: the works proceed at a glacial pace, often delayed and uncoordinated, and with no end date in sight.

I reproduce below the text of my email to the Corporation’s Chair of Policy explaining the situation, comment on her reply, and ask questions about a photograph taken last month.

EMAIL SENT BY ME TO THE CITY OF LONDON COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL ON 6 JULY 2021 (addressed to the Chair of Policy and copied to all members)

Dear Policy Chair,

During the last month, I have called on the Policy and Resources Committee to take urgent action on a matter that blights the Corporation’s reputation and many of its residents’ lives.

For decades, the Corporation has neglected the maintenance of its own social housing estates. When I gave the Chair of Policy a tour of Golden Lane Estate four years ago, I believe you were shocked to see its poor condition. When I gave Keith Bottomley, Vice Chair of Policy, a tour of the estate last month, he had a similar reaction. Any member can go to the estate to see for themselves peeling paint on the buildings and railings, patched and leaking roofs and rotten window frames. The buildings bear the insignia of the “Corporation of London”, a name which the City of London Corporation hasn’t used for the last 15 years. The shame of the neglect is compounded by…

The Golden Lane Estate Residents' Association is one of the sponsors of a major petition that has just been launched to seek reform of the planning process in the City.

All Golden Lane residents know the harm that is being done to our Estate by the Denizen and COLPAI developments, which are the products of the City’s undemocratic planning process.

This petition is a chance for you - together with other City residents and workers, and anyone interested in our heritage - to speak with one voice against that process, particularly as a proposal was recently made by the City Corporation's leadership to reduce democratic accountability in planning even further.

The text of the petition is set out below.

Please use this link to sign it a soon as you can: http://chng.it/Y8H6M7DsHf.

(If you haven’t previously signed a Change.org petition, you may not initially be offered a Comments box in which you can insert your status as a resident, etc. You may be able to add that comment afterwards. But while giving your status is useful, it isn’t essential: the important thing is to sign.)

The petition will be formally presented to the Court of Common Council at its meeting in April (but needs to be lodged before the end of this month). A high number of signatures may turn the dial - even a little - on this matter, which potentially affects us all.

Petition to the Court of Common Council, City of London…