Words: Andrea Cowhig, Treasurer of Hastings Area Southern Housing Tenants Association (HASHTA). Image: “The Battle of Hollington” by P.A. Uri, the Marquis of Markwick.
All Four Courts residents recently received a newsletter from Southern Housing (SH), please see our response, as there was some misleading information in there regarding HASHTA, which is rather upsetting.
All we want to do is support our fellow residents, as you all well know (I hope), whether that be making sure you get the property you need and want, or if you would like information about the retrofit first approach – which hasn’t even been considered by SH – or if you want help and advice from us. WE ARE MORE THAN HAPPY TO HELP. Any Southern Housing residents, in any area of Hastings and Bexhill.
It is good to see Southern Housing producing a newsletter to answer issues raised by HASHTA about the Four Courts, but it is quite sad and really unacceptable that they have lied about some of the issues we raised.
The positive parts of the newsletter are that Southern Housing is now opening up the Four Courts Steering Group to any tenants who want to join it, which was not the case previously. This is something HASHTA supports, and we have always said we want to work with Southern Housing and the Steering Group to explore the best options for the Four Courts.
We still think the Tenants Association has a role to play because we are independent of Southern Housing (thank you for clarifying this in your newsletter!) and we can also bring in the views and opinions of tenants outside the Four Courts who are also impacted by what happens there – for example when former Four Courts tenants start arriving at their block.
We also welcome the newsletter confirming that we are supporting tenants who feel under pressure to move into unsuitable alternative accommodation. We think everyone should be offered a property that meets all their needs, whether that’s accessibility or size or location.
What is not acceptable is to put ‘quotes’ from HASHTA saying things we never said.
Some tenants may be well advised to go to the council or social services for support if they are not being offered relocation (such as tenants in Churchill and Kennedy) and have urgent medical or other reasons why they need to move now. This applies to tenants in any social housing anywhere and it is absurd to suggest we would advise people to go to the council because they DON’T want to move. It seems like the only reason to include this in the newsletter is to discredit HASHTA, but tenants can judge for themselves whether it is likely we said this.
The newsletter also says we are claiming all residents want to stay in the four courts. That is obviously not true, which is why we are asking for all tenants who want to move to be offered housing they are happy with.
What is true however is that many tenants do want to stay, and that view is not recognised at all in the newsletter. Southern Housing says that refurbishment is not viable even though we have spoken to independent experts who say it is. We have asked Southern Housing to show us their own surveys and reports that prove it is not possible to refurbish, but they have not done so. We are left wondering whether the reports even exist.
They claim they have £100 million to invest in the Four Courts but our architect advisors suggest the flats could be extensively refurbished and greatly improved – and additional sustainable homes could be built on the site – for less than half that cost!
We had already clarified to Southern Housing, in writing, before the newsletter was produced, that the architects proposing to build in the ‘air space’ above the car park are proposing to retain the car park underneath, so again it is dishonest to claim that HASHTA is putting forward proposals that would remove car parking from tenants. (The newsletter actually quotes us saying “above” the car park before saying parking spaces would be lost – nice job whoever checked that over).
Southern Housing claim that the aim of demolishing is to increase the number of houses on the site. Our proposal to put up modular factory-built homes would involve much less pollution and would be much quicker than people living in a demolition and building site for ten years, and many tenants think this is an option that should be explored rather than dismissed out of hand.
Overall this newsletter seems designed to demoralise people and discourage them from putting alternative proposals, rather than proving that Southern Housing is genuinely interested in exploring different options and giving tenants a real say in what happens.
The staff writing this newsletter may just be following the agenda coming from the top of Southern Housing, who seem dead set on demolishing no matter what, and staff will no doubt come and go over the lifetime of this regeneration scheme. But the tenants will have to live with the impact of the estate falling further into disrepair, flats being left empty, demolition and years of construction, so there is a lot at stake and we will not stop raising the voices of tenants and local residents who care deeply about getting the best outcome for our community.
Contact HASHTA on Facebook or by email via HASHTA.action@gmail.com.
To see Southern Housing’s Newsletter, head over to HASHTA’s Facebook page, where this has been uploaded 👌🏼