No Change to Housing Management in Bedminster, Bristol

Jan. 27, 2012 - PRLog -- The Bedminster Tenant Management Organisation (BTMO) which was hoping to manage 1700 Bristol homes, has failed its final assessment and is to be closed down.  Mike Chappell, Redcliffe tenant and the acting Chair of The Redcliffe Community Forum, who had opposed the TMO from its inception, said, "This is the right result for Redcliffe Tenants and Leaseholders and those of the BTMO area as a whole.  The BTMO proposal was flawed from the very beginning." A TMO is a group of residents who take over management of estates from the local council, taking control of often large sums of tax, leaseholders' and rent-payers' money.

Thomas Cooke, of Waring, Underdown, Francombe Tenants' organisation (W.U.F.), known to everyone as "Rock n Roll Tommy", another leading member of the local resistance to the TMO said, "W.U.F. Tenants have been at the forefront of campaigning against this undemocratic group. We have been asked to speak at blocks of flats where the BTMO board people live, and all the flats have been against TMOs." W.U.F. is active in community issues and has just secured Lottery funding for a computer club to enable residents to access computer resources more easily.

Mike Chappell criticised the underhand way that the TMO operated, "BTMO also shockingly issued their TMO proposal to the Council without any membership lists, and we hence opposed it due to this lack of representation. It has brought significant worries and sleepless nights to tenants, not least from the handful of dubious individuals running it, and rather than improving the housing services that were not shown statistically to be failing, would have threatened them. It is a shame that such large amounts of money, time and effort have been expended on something that wasn’t wanted and I hope Bristol City Council learn from this."

Martin Owen, Tenant Management Liaison Manager, Bristol City Council, told residents in an email, "We have now received confirmation from the TSA [The Government Agency that supervises TMOs] that Bedminster TMO were unsuccessful with their appeal and their investigation in becoming a TMO is at an end."

A TMO is where a group of residents put in a proposal for the Right to Manage the housing stock instead of the council.  In some cases the housing remains council-owned but in others the TMO is a first step to becoming a housing association and leaving council control completely.

The local people who form the TMO board have to go through training and a series of assessments to show that they are capable, competent and compliant with the many complex housing matters that will come in front of them. If they pass the assessments there is a ballot of residents and then the TMO can formally start to manage the housing stock. Unusually, the BTMO had three final assessments.  It failed all of them.  Legally, the project should close after the TMO in development fails two assessments.  Mike Chappell says, "After all the previous concerns and irregularities that were raised it should have come as no surprise that this failing organisation refused to go quietly. We pointed out all the irregularities to Martin Owen and eventually these concerns reached the Assessor again, it was indeed 3rd time lucky for tenants and leaseholders who thought it would take a ‘silver bullet’ to finish off this rogue TMO, it shouldn’t happen in a democracy!"

Julian Jackson, a London housing campaigner, who runs the NoTMO website, said, "This is a good result for the people of Bristol.  TMOs are made out to be totally brilliant by their proponents, but sometimes they are riddled with incompetence and misconduct and turn out to be a disaster, wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money, then having to be taken back into council control.  BTMO looked very like it would end up as this sort of TMO. It clearly wasn't up to scratch if it failed three assessments."

It is expected that the TMO will close down and any remaining taxpayers' monies from the £211,000 the organisation received in 2010-2011 should be returned to the council or government.

There are still three TMOs under development in Bristol, and these would control 5205 homes and their development costs so far have been £230,203 (excluding BTMO costs above) with £353902 costs to come in 2012/13.  Bristol City Council pays for 25% of these costs with the government picking up the rest, totaling over £110,000 of Bristol residents' money already paid out in 2010-2011.

Websites: http://www.bedminstertmo.co.uk,  http://www.notmo.org.uk

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Press Release Author: Julian Jackson, writer and editor

My background is as writer specialising in the environment. An expert in eBooks and photography, I am able to provide Press Releases and PR to enhance coverage of environmental innovation and to grow a corporation's media profile in global markets.