THE borough council has been accused of "selling off the family silver" following the decision to sell off its 5,200 council homes to bring them up to a "decent" standard. Its housing stock is to be transferred to a new housing association set up by Waverley Borough Council, which will help to raise more than £200 million over the next 30 years, cash needed to pay for modernisation and the provision of extra affordable homes. However, the move still has to clear a major hurdle before it is set in stone - it has to be agreed by the council's tenants. After a lengthy extraordinary meeting of the council's executive and then full council on Monday, councillors agreed that they had to vote with their heads and not their hearts when deciding what was the best way to manage the homes in the future and bring them up to scratch. An option of maintaining the status quo was rejected last year leaving the council with two choices - maintain ownership of the homes but have them managed by an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) or transfer the stock of homes to a housing association which would own and manage the homes. Members heard that a sample of 2,657 residents were quizzed over the issue and of those who answered, 52 per cent said that they would prefer an ALMO, while 48 per cent preferred stock transfer. Housing portfolio holder Victor Scrivens urged councillors to listen to the views of residents and go with the ALMO option. "With ALMO we will have control with what that ALMO gets up to but with stock transfer we would no longer have that control," he said. William Marshall was also supportive of the ALMO option because it is the next best thing to retaining the management and ownership of the council homes. "The ALMO is the best that we can do for our tenants," he said. "Personally I think that we are morally bound by what the tenants want. We are dealing with people's homes and people's lives it is not a game of Monopoly." Some council members in support of the ALMO option described the stock transfer option as "selling off the family silver". They also pointed out that once the transfer is made, there is no option to change it later on, whereas with an ALMO there is more flexibility. However, those in favour of stock transfer pointed out that the ALMO option would leave a huge funding shortfall of millions for vital works to bring the homes up to standard. They said that the uncertainty surrounding ALMOs, which depend on successful government funding bids, meant that while it may be able to bring the housing up to a minimum standard, it would not be able to carry out vast improvements. Mary Foryszewski told the meeting that the council had no choice but to "sell-off' the housing stock because it could no longer afford to it keep it. "It has been said to me that this is selling off the family silver but there is no point in polishing something that you cannot afford to keep," she said. Members pointed out the views of residents were different geographically with tenants in Farnham, Godalming and the western villages preferring ALMO and tenants in Haslemere and the eastern villages preferring stock transfer. The age of tenants also had a bearing on the preferences with the majority of tenants under 65 preferring stock transfer and those over 65 preferring ALMO. James Mackie described the housing issue as "a hearts and minds" one and said that councillors had to vote for the most sensible option. The councillors in favour of the stock transfer pointed out that unlike the ALMO option, the stock transfer would create cash to pay for improvements to things such as garages and adaptations for disabled people. On top of this, the stock transfer would also generate cash to build an extra 350 affordable homes in the borough over the next 10 years in addition to the homes created through the planning process, while the ALMO would not create any. Sue Campany said that when she speaks to residents about their needs, "affordable housing is the one thing that always comes up". After a lengthy debate in front of the packed public gallery, the council, given a free vote, eventually voted in favour of a stock transference by 33 votes to 17. The homes would be transferred to a housing association created by the council. Waverley council will now apply to the government to push ahead with the stock transfer and will have to go through a lengthy procedure before it is actually implemented. This includes a major hurdle - and what is potentially a massive stumbling block - getting the support of tenants. The council will hold a secret and independently scrutinised ballot this year of all of its tenants over the stock transfer. Waverley must get majority support otherwise it will not be able to go ahead and it will be back to the drawing board. Waverley is in the process of setting up a shadow board of councillors, tenants and independent people to work with the council to draw up the stock transfer plans before the crunch ballot.
