Author: admin

Last month we wrote to the Housing Minister on behalf of over 3,500 members pointing out the problems and defects in the private estate model, both for home owners and for the quality of the estates themselves. You can re-read what we wrote here.

Over a month later we received a response from his department which outrageously ignores the main points:  a) The fundamental  unfairness of a small group of home owners subsidising newly created public open space. b) It suggests Local Authorities are virtually autonomous and not constrained by government policy or funding.  Of course they would say that when they have had to respond to the recent petition calling for compulsory adoption.  c) There is a total unwillingness even to consider alternative ways of funding estate maintenance.  The response is written as if replying to a disgruntled individual, not a large and active campaign group – a bit of wishful thinking on their part? We do not intend to go away, or shut up!

Read to the end and let us know if YOU are reassured that the government intends to look after your interests!

 

 

 

 

HorNets have not had their feet up in the sun over the summer holidays. We have been busy arguing our case.

Perhaps the most important piece of work has been our letter to James Brokenshire, Housing Minister, in response to his speech on housing at the Policy Exchange in July. You can read the full speech here.

We have taken him to task over his statements concerning quality vs quantity in new house building and the social injustice of our position. The letter is quite long, but we believe that it is the essence of our position on new build managed estates. Click on the image below to read the letter:

We plan to share the contents of this letter to key decision makers, and HorNets may wish to use some or all of it when lobbying their MPs.

The “elephant in the closet” is the poor preparation of estate infrastructure – it is absolutely vital that estate home owners do not have to pick up the tab for this in the future.

Thanks to the efforts of HorNets and members of our sister group, the National Leasehold Campaign, the government petition for compulsory adoption of estates has reached and passed the trigger point for a government response. It is open until September 1st – every signature adds weight to the campaign, so please sign and share if you haven’t already done so.

The petition author, who is an individual home owner like all HorNets was unaware of our existence until the petition really took off.

You can read the story behind it in this article in his local press.

To sign the petition, please go to https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/213702