Mears Cats at Dockside

This evening there was an action outside Newham Dockside by the People's Empowerment Alliance for Custom House (PEACH) led by Mears Cats.

Newham Mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, was at a Youth Board meeting in Stratford and asked me to go and speak to the protesters. The action was about the slowness of the Council to progress the agreed transfer of short-life homes into housing cooperatives. Now I know the full facts, I think we do owe PEACH an apology for not being quick enough (and most importantly, not keeping them up-to-date with what is going on)

The next meeting with PEACH and the Mayor will be on 30 May and I am sure that we will be much closer to sorting things out by then.

Picture college of today and past actions with PEACH, the Mayor and Mears Cats.

One Housing "defends" the indefensible

This is the 3rd recent post on Housing Association, "One Housing Group". First was in August this year in response to their plans to "Shape Communities" while at the same time slashing the pay and conditions of already low paid care and support staff.

The second was early this month about this post by Cllr Marc Francis, Tower Hamlets Labour Party, on housing blog "Red Brick" about "One Housing" going back on a deal made with residents about them having a majority on their local housing management board. This deal was in return for their support for an estate transfer.

"One Housing" have now come up with a rather silly defence of their action in this "Inside Housing" report. They attack the previous Board, Tory Cllrs and the local Labour MP and appear to claim that residents are just incapable of running housing services.

Which must be a bit of a surprise to the many successful co-operative housing organisations here and abroad. 

This is just an excuse. They could have compromised and still had an effective Residents Board but have chosen not to do so.

No wonder many attack Housing Associations as being unaccountable with poor or non existent governance, run in the interests of the senior management executives and their advisers, not ordinary residents.  This may be unfair to some but thanks to the behaviour of "One Housing" (and others) you can understand why many residents and politicians think so.

Somerfield’s adoption by the Co-operative family

Our local Somerfield (in a very handy location just next door to Forest Gate Station) is now giving out leaflets about being part of the “Co-op family”. I also got a marketing email today about this (see picture left).

I have asked staff when the full rebranding will take place but they were not too sure. But good news for us local residents and no doubt the staff.

I am a member of the “Co-op” (and the Labour affiliated Co-op Party) but there had been nowhere locally to buy goods and groceries since the stores in Leytonstone and Stratford closed many moons ago.

Tonight on BBC local News I watched a report on a campaign to have the former East End work house and mental health hospital, St Clements, (where I use to do trade union site safety inspections - a very interesting experience) turned into a Housing Co-op site and Community Land Trust.

The mutually owned Banks and building societies have been attracting fresh interest since it appears that due to their ownership structure they have survived the recent financial turmoil much better that their Joint Stock competitors (not all of course). There is never the less a lesson here for the benefits of active ownership.

The Co-op financial services has also recently taking over the Britannia Building society (a long term partner with UNISON) to produce a new “super mutual”.

So it appears that the Co-op movement in the UK (and especially Newham) seems to be on the march again.

BTW - I must admit that I was disappointed that last week while on a self catering holiday in the Durham Dales I could not use my membership card at local Co-op stores when making purchases. Especially since we were asked every purchase if we had a shareholder account number. I appreciate that local Co-op’s are proud of their independence but I think that it would benefit the movement as a whole if your support by spending at other Co-ops was recognised in some way.

Just a thought- not really a moan.