Agenda item

Tony Mallard, in referring to Item 6- PFI Housing and Decent Homes, noted the recriminations concerning the money spent on the unsuccessful PFI bid and also the proposal elsewhere on the agenda to spend £22m on Decent Homes that would not include Eastfield or Thorplands. He had previously asked if there was an alternative if PFI were to fail; this had never been answered. It looked as if Eastfield and Thorplands would now miss out. He queried whether the tenants were the victim of a plot by HCA. He noted that over the next 25 years 2 million homes would be needed nationally. Mr Mallard commented that the residents did not trust the Council and believed that they were constantly under threat.

Shayley Watson, in referring to Item 6- PFI Housing and Decent Homes, apologised to the Chair for her outburst at the Cabinet meeting on 10 November 2010: emotions hasd been running high on that evening. Shayley commented that most residents of Eastfield and Thorplands were not sorry that the PFI project had failed, although some had supported it. She stated that the allegations made of herself and others that they had intimidated some residents into supporting the petition against the project were untrue and that, if anything, any intimidation had been the other way around. The Chair thanked Shayley for her apology.

Norman Adams, with the agreement of the Chair circulated the text of his address. He first referred to Item 6- PFI Housing and Decent Homes, and questioned whether the substantial spend claimed irrespective of what funding mechanism had been in place, out of the £729,000 spent, was in fact the case. He likened the situation to the Council entering a casino with £1.1m of chips and gambling until the Government then closed that casino by which time the Council had lost £729,000. Norman then referred to Item 9- Award of Decent Homes Contract and noted that work on Phase I had been award to Thomas Vale who had been the subject of an OFT investigation and penalty of over £1m. He noted that the report recommended the award of half of the Phase II contract to Frank Haslam and Co who were also subject to the same OFT investigation as was its parent company. He also referred to an e-mail to the Housing Asset Strategy Manager dated 17 October 2010. Mr Adams noted that the report mentioned the involvement of tenants’ representatives in the process and questioned this as the tenants had not themselves elected “representatives”. On a personal basis he did not recognise anyone that had been selected by the Council.

Abigail Chowney, in referring to Item 8- Community Forums Report, stated that she went to Duston School and had been a member of the Youth Forum for six months. She believed that the Forum was important to young people as they often received a bad press and needed to have a voice. She had been involved in the tours of the Guildhall, part of the Heritage Open Days, when 1,200 members of the public had been shown around and had been involved in a movie project with Northampton Museums. Some members of the Forum had been on a road trip to several other museums and these trips had been filmed and were currently being edited, with the help of Inspiration FM, into a movie. It was hoped that the film would be premiered in March and would be included in the Northampton Festival 2011. The film would be posted on Facebook and U-Tube. Councillor Beardsworth noted the success of the tours of the Guildhall and Councillor Church observed that another film made by young people from the Spring Boroughs area, “X Marks the Spot” might assist with the current project.