Housing bosses have pleaded with council tenants to believe they will fulfil a massive programme of repairs and improvements despite a long “litany of lies” and “broken promises”. Bristol City Council’s budget in March included £1.8billion for council homes over 30 years, including 2,000 new properties in the next seven years, plus an extra £80million on energy efficiency, £12.5million for 5,500 new bathrooms by 2027 and £8.7million to spruce up communal areas, blocks and estates.
But tenant representatives admitted being “cynical”, having heard similar pledges before, with one saying he would be “insane” to believe it now. Officers told the authority’s housing management board that this time was “significantly different” because councillors had signed off on a business plan for the next three decades, including a number of specific major immediate investments.
Tenant rep Pete Daw, of Westbury on Trym, however, told the meeting: “It would not be the first time that there was a litany of broken promises. When I hear there is an additional £80million energy efficiency project, I’m afraid there is a litany of lies that stretches my ability to accept or believe the possibility that my home might have a PVC photo-electric roof generating electricity on it by the close of 2030.”
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He said that unless every property was listed and costed in the business plan for solar panels or better insulation, past experience suggested it just would not happen. Mr Daw told officers: "The difficulty is there have been so many broken promises that I would literally have to be insane to have the same expectations I’ve held in the past believing the outcome to be different when so many of your predecessors have broken them."
The council’s director of housing and landlord services Donald Graham replied: “That is a wholly legitimate challenge and observation. What is significantly different this time around is we do have a council having signed off a 30-year business plan which is worth £1.8billion.
“We have clear categories in which to invest that money. Our demand for housing far exceeds supply, and the real challenge for any housing manager is that when you’re engaging with the public you have to be honest and not make false promises or mislead people.
“If you give an undertaking with someone and it turns out when you get back to the ranch that you can’t deliver that, you have to go back and say ‘sorry I can’t actually do that’ and explain why. The organisational culture we need to create in housing is around transparency because it’s residents’ rent payments we are utilising for all these investments.
“People don't want to be led down the garden path, fed false expectations, because that just breeds cynicism about the council. When it comes to ‘big picture’ stuff we’ve discussed tonight like the rollout programme for bathroom replacements and what’s happening in terms of overarching investment, that needs to have traction, and that traction is based on good quality service delivery and that is something we need to radically improve.”
Hartcliffe & Withywood ward Labour Cllr Kerry Bailes told the virtual meeting on Monday, May 30: “I welcome all the plans but as a council tenant it's sometimes hard to believe that’s ever going to happen. What the council says and what it does can be two different things.
“The kitchens took forever and there are still properties in need of new kitchens, so I hope the bathrooms will be done quicker and to a higher standard." She said some tenants promised new windows nine years ago were still waiting.
“I’m still cynical but only because I’m a council tenant,” she added. Southville ward Green Cllr Tony Dyer said: “The council is coming from a place of a lack of keeping promises for reasons that are in the past, therefore you can see why there is an element of disbelief.
“I wouldn’t want those officers working on projects now to take that personally. You are, in many ways, carrying the can for what has happened in the past.
“All I can say is we will support you as much as possible because we know how important it is to get all this delivered.” The priorities, outlined in the authority’s 30-year housing revenue account, were shaped by the responses of almost 1,500 people to a consultation called the Big Housing Conversation asking what residents wanted the council to focus on.
