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Labour conference to vote on balloting tenants over regeneration projects
The Labour Party conference is set to vote on whether tenants should be balloted before regeneration projects can get the go-ahead.
This afternoon delegates to the conference in Brighton will vote on a motion, seen by Inside Housing, calling on Labour to “support full binding ballot rights for tenants in any ongoing and future regeneration projects”.
Some residents’ groups have been calling for tenant balloting in response to unpopular high-profile estate regeneration projects around the country.
In the past, tenants have been balloted for stock transfers from councils to housing associations, but voting on specific regeneration projects would be a significant change in policy.
Tenant engagement has been high on the sector’s agenda since the fire at Grenfell Tower in June, with many noting that residents of the tower had been ignored when they tried to raise fire safety concerns.
The motion, proposed by Tottenham’s Labour Party, will also call on councils to retain “ownership and control of available public land” and “to cease disposing or transferring of public land, council estates and commercial property for the benefit of private sector housing and investment opportunities for the few”.
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If passed, the motion would clash with Labour-led Haringey Council’s stated intention to transfer just over half of its commercial portfolio and a large chunk of its housing stock to a private company, run jointly between itself and private developer Lendlease.
Labour could also demand that the Grenfell Tower Inquiry examines the role that deregulation by past governments since the 1980s played in the spread of the fire.
In a separate motion, it insists that the public inquiry should take a wider remit. If passed, the motion will also call on a future Labour government to lift the Housing Revenue Account cap on council borrowing.
The motion – proposed by the Fire Brigades Union – further insists that local authorities and housing associations be required to have “technical expertise in place to ensure quality control”.
The power of Labour’s annual conference to influence party policy was diluted during the New Labour era, and so motions passed this week will not necessarily make it into the party’s manifesto. They will, however, be considered at the next National Policy Forum.
