I’ve never seen a LibDem parliamentary candidate so keen to work against residents in affordable and social housing.

Liberal Democrat Parliamentary hopeful teams up with LibDem Housing Committee Chair to oppose measures to protect residents in new build private, affordable and social housing.

Author: Sheldon Vestey is the Leader of the Sutton Labour Group and councillor for Hackbridge Ward, previously the New Mill Quarter Residents Association Chair also in Hackbridge.

As a new Councillor in Sutton, representing the Labour party for the first time in decades, I predictably held certain presumptions and indeed, political expectations of what it would be like to work alongside the Conservative group in the Council. However, it was the attitude of the Liberal Democrats, and more specifically the behaviour of Bobby Dean, their Carshalton and Wallington parliamentary candidate, which has truly shaken my faith in the workings of local democratic politics.

When friends ask me what my role is like as a Councillor, I often quip that it is to feel professionally ignored. My Labour colleagues and I have tried and yet failed to achieve some of the things we set out to do. For example, trying to fix the myriad problems caused by SDEN, the Council’s unreliable and questionable heat networking system, at least for now. But we have also brought about changes and improvements I didn’t think were possible, The reality is my Labour colleagues and I have moved the bar significantly in many respects, making large-scale changes fixing surface-level flooding with Thames Water, securing six-figure investments for parks and local enhancements, attracting youth groups to the area, bolstering police presence and obtaining commercial premises for local charities, free of charge and all whilst solving complex issues for dozens of our residents, and sadly too often for the latter, in wards represented by the Liberal Democrats. Crucially, we have succeeded in achieving what our political predecessors, the LibDems failed to do for twenty years, listening to our communities and working for their benefit. You’d be surprised what a moderately active Councillor can actually achieve.

The powers of a Councillor sometimes seem opaque, although the responsibilities are clearer. We are unable to revoke your parking ticket for instance, nor get you a discount on Council tax, but we can step in to prevent homelessness, escalate a case by lobbying on behalf of a resident or debating and voting to approve millions of pounds in funding for local projects. We are able to bring motions compelling local government to take certain safeguarding actions. The latter however requires council members to cooperate or a majority with an agenda to bring about change or block it.

Of course, what happens in the Council chamber is often of little interest to the general public. What it should be, and which it is sometimes, is a platform to compel the weight of local government to make the kinds of positive changes which will have an impact on hundreds of thousands of residents through the subtle lenses of our knowledge and experience of our own communities.  The reality though, is often far less than this ideal. For some Councillors it's a political training ground for higher aspirations, a platform to cut one’s political teeth on, Shamefully, some Councillors use it as an opportunity to prioritise a fledgling career over providing help to their residents. In at least one case I’m familiar of, an individual nearly went homeless, shortly before he passed away – simply because ward councillors didn’t respond. Ward councillors were too busy celebrating and devising their MP campaign, or at least that’s my assumption.

My own political journey started because of my frustration with Sutton Council and Barratt Homes, alongside a healthy dislike for the past 13 years or so of Government of course. The council’s domestic heating system SDEN was both unreliable and over-priced, leaving my own children in the cold dozens of times. Meanwhile, Barratt Homes did such a bad job on my new build estate that I felt compelled to become involved and eventually extracted millions of pounds in repairs and compensation for my neighbours. The estate is actually pretty nice now and the community amazing.

The need to control dodgy housebuilders is something that most of us, I imagine, would support. At least that was my impression. It shouldn’t take running for election and creating a resident association of over 600 members to simply get a home that doesn’t leak.

The idea then was simple. We make housebuilders directly and legally accountable to all their customers, whether they live in social housing, affordable housing such as shared ownership or are private occupiers. Questions are generated to investigate the experience of occupiers and we don’t just ask them once, we ask them three times, both inside and outside of the standard two-year warranty period.

We find out not just about the quality but also the responsiveness and truthfulness of these developers. Builders can be ranked in league tables based on these results meaning residents can be better informed. As a local government authority, we investigate ways to compel the developer to use those rankings on future promotional materials in the borough, and make them available on the council’s website. Imagine seeing marketing material for a new development with a build quality of 1/5 and a truthfulness mark of 0/5? Would these companies making billions from housing be so cavalier with their customers?

This is not an attack on business. It is, however, a way to help the sector and let those who do good work really shine through, and supply an incentive to those that don’t, to improve. With a minimum of 300k new build houses needed per year for the next 50 years, to tackle the housing crisis, it's the least we should be doing. This is the future of our housing stock after all, and the properties our children will ultimately need to live in.

The status quo is that private purchasers get to review their house builder. However, typically this review is secured by the housebuilder in the giddy new purchase honeymoon phase. Sometimes, the request is accompanied by a bottle of champagne and never repeated after the property gets lived in and any issues need fixing. Imagine reviewing your car before you drive it even a mile? For social or affordable housing, the owner remains the housing association or local authority. There is no mechanism for these occupiers to highlight dodgy building practices. Should they have snags, they need the approval of the ultimate owner to get the developer to do anything.

Developers of course know this. That’s why residents in shared ownership properties frequently get a lower quality of service. On my estate, some have endured rampant mould, repeat leaks, and holes in roofs that let all aspects of the weather. In some cases, even fire safety equipment is missing. Where are those lessons from Grenfell?

Many have given up after a war of attrition with Barratt homes, Developers understand that only the most ardent and intransigent residents would keep going. Having secured their positive reviews, and having protected their 5 star builder status, what leverage do the occupiers have? Affordable property occupiers can’t access the NHBC warranty service for the new build sector without great effort, relying on the housing association to approve it. This is the state of our housing crisis and for social housing projects like at Beech Tree Place being built by Sutton Council, residents there will be entirely dependent on the seriously underfunded Council to get any issues rectified. I have great faith and respect for Council officers, but this is the reality and it shouldn’t be on Council tax dime to make developers behave.

To put it bluntly, if the Council can’t fix potholes or trim the hedges, what hope do you think social housing tenants have of getting the Council to compel a developer to fix defects in the properties they have just built?

As is too sadly the norm in today’s society, those with less or those without more experience, get squashed. In housing that happens to be first-time buyers, affordable housing occupiers and social housing tenants.

So the problem is clear and a solution is straightforward to implement. Rank developers and bring transparency. What’s not to like? Well, for Cllr Bobby Dean, and his associate, Cllr Bartolucci, the almost ironic chair of the Housing Committee, this shockingly wasn't something they liked. They hated it and forced through an amendment, stripping social, affordable and private freeholders from seeing accountability. It was the Conservatives and Independent group which sought to support it.

It became clear to me quite early on that Dean didn’t understand the issues. Nor did his colleague. Speaking about the pitfalls of the plan, he curiously went onto support the mechanism in the motion that he said wouldn’t work, but strangely, exclusively for leaseholders. Dean is obviously ignorant of the fact that leaseholders have more rights on the so-called 'fleece hold' new build estates than freeholders. He either didn’t know that affordable and social occupiers can be in freehold houses, or he simply sought to exclude them. Quite possibly he believes that those on lower incomes or Council housing don’t deserve houses.

A few weeks earlier, whilst Dean was canvassing on a new build estate, he heard directly from dozens of residents in freehold houses, including affordable housing, that their main causes of concern were building snags and developer unresponsiveness. Bizarrely, he then proudly announced in follow-up letters, that he had contacted the managing agent, a company instructed to look after communal grounds to flag the problems and not the developer who was responsible. I’m unsure if he failed to understand this or was just gaslighting the residents he would ultimately act against in Council.

So why would a Parliamentary Candidate seek to undermine local residents in affordable, social and private new build housing? Your guess is a good as mine!  If it’s not because the idea is bad, or that the problem doesn’t exist, then it can only be one of three options. He didn’t want to help, he didn’t understand or didn’t want to support a good idea because it didn’t come from him or his colleagues.

This then, is the calibre of the man who wants to represent our borough in parliament. Make of that what you will.

If you would like to review the motion, amendment or watch the debate, you can do so here,  here & here

 
Be warned though, some of the Liberal Democrats took the whole meeting so casually that the number of swear words may not be suitable for everyone.