Going Backwards.....
RBH would claim that their demolition/regeneration plans for College Bank and Lower Falinge are brave and radical,somehow. If you look at it in more than a cursory way, though, they are planning to replace them with "affordable" housing, two/three bedroomed that will, over time, end up displacing people living in these communities because they will no longer be able to live there, because they won't be able to afford to. Hardly radical,that.
A more radical alternative would be to give tenants genuine control over the place where they live.What we have at present is a set of non-options, a limited and disingenuous consultation exercise, the whole process being tightly controlled by the board of RBH, in co-ordination with the virtually indivisible political/business Greater Manchester elite.The truth is that tenants are marginalised.We are told that the board is acting in our best interests, that they have expertise and contacts, that they are there because they "respect" the values of the organisation.I have no doubt that some of this is genuine, that they do have genuine,but limited,altruistic intentions.
In reality,this is about money and profit, very little of which will benefit the community.I would not be entirely surprised,further along the line, if a merger with another housing association happens, at which point the profit motive will become ruthlessly apparent, and the present values will look ever more a desirable, though hardly essential, "add on".
I would hasten to add that none of this is anything like a conspiracy; it is simply the accepted way of doing things.We are tolerated,patted on the head, and sent on our way. God forbid that we might have genuine demands about where and how we live, because you can bet those demands would be treated with contempt by the elite.
There are alternatives.Not perfect alternatives, not alternatives without problems, but better ones than we are being offered. Refurbishment, co-operatives, community land trusts would all be ways for us to take control of the process.Starting with an independent tenants organisation....
And why going backwards?When these estates were built, they were a radical solution from not terribly radical politicians, built to standards sadly not maintained down the years, leading to structural decline.Which is not in itself a decent reason for mass demolition.I would like to see more of it preserved,a lot more. But let's not make any bones about this, these estates have become regarded as "dumping grounds", a contemptible attitude, with the people living in them regarded, with poorly disguised hostility, as a "burden".
They do need regeneration, new people moving in- but not at the expense of the existing community. This has the potential to provide some long,long overdue change- but these proposals are a million miles off providing it.
The present madness that constitutes economic orthodoxy holds that it is better to demolish and replace with housing for priced out young mancs, living in a dormitory anywhere, rather than have a real, tenant led alternative.I know what i'd prefer.....
A more radical alternative would be to give tenants genuine control over the place where they live.What we have at present is a set of non-options, a limited and disingenuous consultation exercise, the whole process being tightly controlled by the board of RBH, in co-ordination with the virtually indivisible political/business Greater Manchester elite.The truth is that tenants are marginalised.We are told that the board is acting in our best interests, that they have expertise and contacts, that they are there because they "respect" the values of the organisation.I have no doubt that some of this is genuine, that they do have genuine,but limited,altruistic intentions.
In reality,this is about money and profit, very little of which will benefit the community.I would not be entirely surprised,further along the line, if a merger with another housing association happens, at which point the profit motive will become ruthlessly apparent, and the present values will look ever more a desirable, though hardly essential, "add on".
I would hasten to add that none of this is anything like a conspiracy; it is simply the accepted way of doing things.We are tolerated,patted on the head, and sent on our way. God forbid that we might have genuine demands about where and how we live, because you can bet those demands would be treated with contempt by the elite.
There are alternatives.Not perfect alternatives, not alternatives without problems, but better ones than we are being offered. Refurbishment, co-operatives, community land trusts would all be ways for us to take control of the process.Starting with an independent tenants organisation....
And why going backwards?When these estates were built, they were a radical solution from not terribly radical politicians, built to standards sadly not maintained down the years, leading to structural decline.Which is not in itself a decent reason for mass demolition.I would like to see more of it preserved,a lot more. But let's not make any bones about this, these estates have become regarded as "dumping grounds", a contemptible attitude, with the people living in them regarded, with poorly disguised hostility, as a "burden".
They do need regeneration, new people moving in- but not at the expense of the existing community. This has the potential to provide some long,long overdue change- but these proposals are a million miles off providing it.
The present madness that constitutes economic orthodoxy holds that it is better to demolish and replace with housing for priced out young mancs, living in a dormitory anywhere, rather than have a real, tenant led alternative.I know what i'd prefer.....
