Not quite. I got a grant for this place. It already had a bathroom and internal loo. It was a repair/modernisation grant. Works done included a new roof and central heating. The house was structurally pretty good.
Depends on your viewpoint. Helping keep the housing stock in good condition - whether private or council - could be seen as a decent enough objective.
But I can just see all our right wingers frothing at the mouth over such an idea. Unless it is Rees-Mogg's family home, of course.
Thing is I'm not really sure any council officials get involved in such things. Other than approving which overall contractor gets the job - perhaps based on the lowest quote. And that lowest quote might well involve cutting things back beyond the bone. Only a properly qualified council official would have any idea if this was the case or not. And my suspicion is all that once would be have been got rid of, or their department reduced in size to the point where it is no longer fully effective.
Yes. But there are degrees of "in-betweenessness". KCTMO appears to be towards the end of the spectrum which gives it greater control up to and including major works - although I'm not saying that definitely included the refurbishment in question.
I'll include below an opening bit which goes some way to address Mr Plowman's repeated nudge-nudge, wink-wink:
"In the early 1990s, the tenants and leaseholders of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea decided to pursue their legal right to manage their own homes. Following two separate ballots in 1994 and 1995, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) was established on 1 April 1996 and the responsibility for managing 9,760 properties passed from The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the Tenant Management Organisation.
The Council still owns the properties and retains responsibility for strategic housing policies and homeless people. The relationship between KCTMO and the Council is governed by a Management Agreement, which covers all areas of the landlord business. Whilst KCTMO still enjoys a close working relationship with the Council, it is a completely separate company.
In 2002 KCTMO took over the responsibility for major capital works from the Council to access extra resources and funding to enable KCTMO to bring the properties up to the Decent Homes Standard."
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I'm tempted to say the "truth is out there" but expect there are sadly now also many alternative truths.
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