Defend Council Housing Conference - 25 November 2008

The DCH conference on Tuesday 25 November provides an important opportunity for tenants and other supporters of council housing to sharpen our arguments and directly contribute to the government's 'Review of Council Housing Finance' (plenary session and workshop with Steve Hilditch and Steve Partridge).

We urgently need to reunite the council housing family (authorities directly managing their homes and ALMOs) to secure the future for council housing and give those facing 'stock options appraisals' and transfer ballots the opportunity to hear the argument for an immediate moratorium and the case against privatisation.

Organise a delegation from your area to take part. Circulate the programme and registration form to tenants reps, trade unionists and councillors in your area and use the new DCH 'HRA Ready Reckoner' to publicise how much your authority would get if government agreed to fully fund allowances as the outcome from the review.

Download registration form here:

http://www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/resources/DCH2008ConfFlyer.pdf

Local authorities pay for tenants to attend all sorts of conferences and events. Ask yours to sponsor tenants to attend this conference so that they can hear from a wide range of speakers, participate in the workshops and meet tenants from other areas.

The growing crisis in the private housing market reinforces the arguments for investment in a first class public housing sector. Tenants, trade unionists and councillors in authorities directly managing their homes and ALMOs need to come together to assert our common interests and secure a strong financial future from the government's review. And with the private housing sector shutting up shop there is increasing support across the UK for a massive programme of investment to build a new generation of first class council housing providing secure tenancies, low rents and an accountable landlord that people need.

Contributors to the conference include: Professor Peter Ambrose; Weyman Bennett, joint secretary, Unite Against Fascism; Lesley Carty, DCH; Frank Dobson MP; Jack Dromey, deputy general secretary UNITE; Wilf Flynn, UCATT executive council; Steve Hilditch, facilitating workshops for Review of Council Housing Finance; Dave Gibson, housing consultant and Moonlight Robbery campaign; John Grayson, housing researcher; Paul Holmes MP; Adam Lent, TUC Head of Economic and Social Affairs; Linda McNeil, chair, Leeds Tenants Federation; John Marias, Cambridge Tenants Against Privatisation; Michael Meacher MP; Austin Mitchell MP; Paul O’Brien, chief executive, APSE; Steve Partridge, director, HQN; Alan Rickman, chair, Winchester TACT; Patricia Rowe, Taunton tenant; Eileen Short, Tower Hamlets Against Transfer; Heather Wakefield, national secretary UNISON; Alan Walter, chair Defend Council Housing.

Attend workshops on ‘Stock Options and Stock Transfer; ‘Housing Finance – how it works’, ‘What tenants want from Review of Council Housing Finance’; ‘Post transfer experience’; ‘ALMOs: avoiding ‘two-stage’ privatisation’; ‘Tenants Movement and tenants representation’; 'Tenants Against the Nazis'; ‘Organising effective local campaigns’