Areas of Concern

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A new inclusive Tenant Participation Strategy:

The Council has agreed a fundamental overhaul to tenant participation in Camden.

• Who is affected?

• How is the service delivered?

• Who is doing what?

• Is this what tenants want?

See Camden Fed's

Download full report

Please send all TRA registration documents and Grant / Training application forms to:

Tenant Participation Team, Housing

and Adult Social Care Directorate, London Borough of Camden,

Bidborough House, Room 304,

20 Mabledon Place

London WC1H 9BF 

Please note that due to a transitional period of handing identified services

and tasks back to Camden,

there may be a delay in responding to requests. For more details please check our website regularly or contact us on

freephone 0800 652 3140 

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Tenants & Residents Organisations of England

TAROE is the national umbrella organisation for Tenants and Residents Associations within England, and aims to provide a unified organisation in order to influence decisions that affect tenants and residents homes and their environment.
Next AGM - 4 October 2008

http://www.taroe.org

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You may be interested in attending Capita's National Conferences

Neighbourhood Policing and Safer Communities Conference

Anti-Social Tenants Conference

Advice and assistance with booking is available from the Fed

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Huge Almo Rent Increases

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Camden Council spent £3.5million on spin last year!  

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Camden Fed unveils its new look news letter

Camden Tenant

The newsletter was designed based on input from management committee members who decided that going back to an A3 broad sheet would allow for greater flexibility in content and design.

This issue which is a "Summer Special" is full of local and national stories and encourages council tenants and residents to get involved by building strong communities and setting up TRA's.                                                          Download issue 183

Send your Sumer festival photos to us

"Sunday July 20 2008 Peckwater Estate TRA  held its annual Sports Day & BBQ - last year we missed it because we kept being drowned out!"

Camden Fed encourages social events and activities as it is evident that these activities inevitably leads to more tenant involvement and and even the setting up of TRA's which in turn means tenants holding our landlord to account.

Please send us your summer event photos and we shall publish them on our website.

Link to more photos

The Camden Property Strategy for 2008 -12

TRA Halls and Community Centres are affected.

Have you been consulted?

• ‘includes all the Council’s property holdings’, with aim of maximising ‘customer access’, ‘value for money’, ‘service improvement’ and ‘return on investment’ (2.6)

• ‘land adjoining residential dwelling should be included’ with view to ‘dispose of under-performing assets’ (2.7)

• includes ‘sharing, rationalisation and improvement of buildings used for voluntary and community purposes’ (4.1)

• Specifically ‘Voluntary and Community sector and Residents Association lettings’ are included ‘as part of the stock take and evaluation’ and an ‘asset transfer policy’ (4.6)

• Commitment to ‘early consultation and involvement of users and residents’ as a ‘prerequisite’ (4.7)

Download full council report

Time to bring excluded tenants in from the cold

(Inside Housing 11 July 2008)

For years, successive ministers have stuck to the line that there are enough investment options available. It’s true that the existing options have proved very successful – where tenants have been prepared to back them.

But if residents in places like Waverley and Camden don’t want a housing association or ALMO as their landlord, then they are effectively frozen out.

Full Article

Support The Moonlight Robbery Campaign  

To learn more and get involved please click here or view notice board messages

www.moonlightrobbery.org.uk

Read about the Moonlight Robbery Campaign

On Wed. June 25th 2008

Supporters of the Moonlight Robbery campaign presented an invoice (for monies taken from council tenants) to "Gordon Brown" outside the House of Commons

Did you know?

Did you know that since 1997 the government has taken a massive £19 billion more nationally in rents and other receipts from council residents then it gave back in subsidies?

In tangible terms that equates to over 80,000 two bedroom new council flats, or one million existing council homes brought to a decent modern standard.

Camden's negotiating tactic amounts to telling the government: 'give us the money, otherwise don't worry, we have a plan B - we shall sell off some council homes instead and raise the money that way'!

Are you a council tenant? Support the Moonlight Robbery Campaign, organise tenant meetings and inform them of this robbery, write to your councillors and MP's and demand that they support council tenants by stopping the government's back door extra tax on us simply for being council tenants. Demand that all the moneys which should have been returned to us are reinvested in maintaining council homes and to build new ones.

Phone Camden Fed to find out what else you can do! 0800 652 3140

Bradford Tenants Conference due to take Place on July 8th has been cancelled due to a clash with a conference on the National Tenants Voice in Leeds organised by TPAS on the same day.

It is hoped that the Bradford Conference which was to discuss "where the independent tenants movement is going" will now take place sometime in     September 2008

The National Tenants Voice (NTV) - TPAS Conferences over

Information flyer and Booking Form 

In its recommendations to the Secretary of State, The Cave Review Of Social Housing stated that (Para S12 Page 22): "A national tenant voice should be established to give tenants both a voice and expertise at national level".

Camden Fed's interim response to the Cave Review

LTF's Briefing Paper for the NTV

Motion passed at London conference on National Tenants Voice,

28 June 2008

1. Government should respect the view of tenants

2. Government should require landlords to fund independent tenants organisation at local level

3. Any national body set up to represent tenants should be made up of tenants reps who are directly elected and accountable to tenants

4. We need a clear process for tenants organisations to put proposals to the national body

5. Before any formal proposal is put to government we should be reconvened and consulted again

Proposed by Alan Walter, Camden Federation of Tenants & Residents Associations

Passed nem con

   A new YouGov survey of 1,906 adults across England shows:

• 70 per cent of people have signed a petition - 63 per cent in the last 5 years, and 42 per cent in the last year;

• 90 per cent of people think that councils should take account of views raised through petitions when making decisions - but only 21 per cent of people agree that they currently do;

• 84 per cent of people said they were more likely to sign a petition if a response was guaranteed and over half (54 per cent) of respondents were more likely to organise one if a response was guaranteed

• of those who have signed or organised a petition 48 per cent were not satisfied with the way in which the council took their views into account; and,

• 34 per cent of us do not know their council's process for submitting petitions.

Information from CLG press release - 9 July 2008

White Paper delivers power shift to local people

White Paper Conclusion