Tenants draw up ‘good and bad’ checklist for East End’s social landlords

Social landlords in London’s East End are getting a checklist of good and bad practice when dealing with tenants’ grievances.

The checklist is being put together by Tower Hamlets Federation of Tenants Associations after years of campaigning for better management of housing estates.

It follows negotiations with Tower Hamlets Homes when tenants put forward ways to improve things—and most were accepted.

“Tower Hamlets Homes has been brave letting its Residents Panel scrutinise how it deals with anti-social behaviour,” said a tenants’ federation spokesman.

“The tenants’ panel came up with 50 recommendations and the Housing Board adopted very nearly all of them.”

Now the Federation is putting together a checklist of good and poor practice to help tenants organisations which want to improve how matters are dealt with on their estates.

They cite an example of bad management following one social landlord, not identified, writing to tenants after a motorbike was set alight in a stairwell—warning them not to bring motorbikes into stairwells and “certainly not to set them on fire.”

The tenants had to point out that had the landlord repaired a broken security door in the six months since it was first reported, the outsiders would not have been able to drag the bike in and torch it.