My friend Bob Towner, who has died aged 81, was York city council’s housing and social services director in the 1980s and 90s.
I got to know him when I was MP for York, writing letters to his department on behalf of constituents with housing needs, and soon learned he was an innovative local government officer with a commitment to empowering tenants – the best I have ever worked with.
As housing director from the early 80s, Bob set about transforming the council’s top down, one-size-fits-all approach by introducing a tenants’ charter that set out the standards of service that people should receive.
This allowed tenants to choose not only cosmetic details – front doors, colour schemes, appliances – but their preferred builder (from an approved list) when major works were needed. Tenant satisfaction increased from 34% to 95% after the initiative had been introduced and estate modernisation costs fell by 40%.
Bob also oversaw the council’s £36m plan to modernise York’s most deprived housing estate, Bell Farm – a project that was based on thorough consultation with tenants and which coupled housing repairs with improved policing, leisure and social services. When the Department of the Environment approved the scheme, it said it had “never seen such a high quality and quantity of community research and consultation”.
Born in Caversham, Berkshire, Bob was the son of Leslie Towner and his wife, Muriel (nee Heiden), who together ran a grocery shop. After attending Reading school, where he excelled at sport, particularly rugby and cricket, he studied industrial chemistry at Loughborough University, doing his year in industry at the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment, and after graduation joined the paints division of ICI in Slough as a manager.
During his time at ICI he was elected as a Labour councillor in Reading in 1967 and became council leader in 1972 while in his late 20s. He stood down from the council in 1974 when local government was reorganised, and the same year left ICI to become assistant director of housing at the London borough of Hillingdon. Moving on to be director of housing at the London borough of Haringey in 1978, his next job was as director of housing at York.
In 1996, when York became a unitary authority, Bob was appointed director of community care and housing, in control of building new sheltered housing provision and converting council residential homes to provide independent living for older people. York’s innovations won national recognition and awards, were widely copied by other councils and written up into good practice guidance by national government.
He retired in 2000, after which he joined the boards of several housing associations and carried out inspections for the Housing Quality Network. He also applied his social care experience as a member of the York Primary Care Trust and championed the rights and needs of pensioners as chair of the York Older People’s Assembly.
Bob was a member of the Campaign for Real Ale and was a “surveyor” of York pubs for its annual Good Beer Guide. He also joined the Labour party walking group, the Clarion Ramblers, leading many expeditions to real ale pubs
His first marriage, to Lesley Francis in 1968, ended in divorce, and he married Fiona Samuel in 1994. He is survived by her, his two sons, Ian and Chris, from his first marriage, and five grandchildren, Elliot, Poppy, Ted, Danny and Lucy.
