On 1st February 2023, the London Assembly Housing Committee held a meeting on – hearing residents’ voices in social housing.
This was a follow-up to a 2018 Housing Committee investigation originally entitled – involvement of tenants in decision-making post-Grenfell.
As part of the 2018 investigation, LTF worked with the chair of the Housing Committee to arrange a meeting for the committee’s members to meet face-to-face with social housing tenants.
This included presentations from council and housing association tenant representatives, and Race on the Agenda and, an open-mic session with tenants/tenant representatives. Around 50 tenants attended the meeting.
The committee also met separately with officers from the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Sutton Housing Partnership arms-length management organisation, Optivo and Metropolitan Housing Associations.
The Housing Committee’s report from the investigation, published in November 2018, can be found towards the end of this page of the GLA’s website
The 1st February 2023 meeting began with a question and answer session between the committee members and Tom Copley, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development. This covered discussion about a meeting that he held with affordable housing providers in February 2022, the Mayor’s warnings in October 2022 that grant funding could be withdrawn from providers in circumstances of non-compliance with regulatory standards, whether the providers’ action plans (to be published on the GLA website) would include requirements around engagement of tenants and whether the Mayor might appoint a social housing (tenant) commissioner in London.
The committee members then went on to ask questions of
- housing officers from One Housing Association and Islington Council and the president of the Chartered Institute of Housing and then
- three elected tenant representatives – Pat Turnbull, LTF and Shian Tenants, Khalid Mair, BME London Landlord Tenants’ Forum and Imani Housing Co-op, and Samantha Vacciana, Southwark Groups of Tenants Organisations, and a housing campaigner – Kwajo Tweneboa.
Here is Pat Turnbull making a short comment before answering a question from Assembly Member Andrew Boff.
Link here to the full webcast (GLA website)