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STUC's view on the housing crisis in Scotland

By: Tayside Tenants, Fri Dec 9th, 2005 04:32:45 PM

Dundee Trades Union Council's View on the Housing Crisis In Dundee This motion from Dundee Trades Council (www.dundeetuc.org.uk) was passed at the 2005 STUC in Dundee “The motion is that this Congress believes that Scottish Public Sector Housing is in a deep crisis, which the policies of Stock Transfer, PFI and PPP can only intensify.

Major Scottish cities, such as Dundee, face population decline, which is being answered by often inappropriate, rushed policies of mass demolition of public housing stock.

Tenants’ desire for low cost, high quality, social housing is being threatened by the insistence of the Scottish Executive that accumulated housing debt will only be cancelled where there is a stock transfer to housing associations or other private landlords.

Some consequences of stock transfer are apparent in Glasgow, with increasing homelessness and the dismissal of elected tenant representatives from their posts.

Congress calls on the General Council and Affiliates to campaign to:

• end the blackmail of Local Authorities and their tenants, represented by the insistence on stock transfer before debt cancellation;

• cancel Scotland’s crippling Local Authority housing debt;

• reverse, where there is popular demand, previous housing stock transfers in Scotland;

• halt the demolition of existing, or former, Local Authority housing stock without meaningful consultation with tenants and communities, and without good quality alternative accommodation for displaced tenants;

• work with, and give practical support to, local campaigns, which oppose stock transfers, PFIs, PPPs and demolitions under the guise of regeneration, which marginalise tenants and communities; and

• work with, and affiliate to, ‘Defend Council Housing’ and work with social partners for the establishment of a sister organisation on similar lines in Scotland.”

About the author: TaysideTenants.Org has been set up by independent tenants groups in the Hilltown, and the Menzieshill area of Dundee – groups that were formed to counter the Council’s plans to demolish our homes and which we believe will destroy our communities. However we know that what is happening to us is part of a much bigger crisis in Dundee housing, and we hope that this website will be used by tenants across the city to share information and get our voices heard.

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