This blog cannot and does not speak for the myriad autonomous anti-bedroom tax groups across merseyside and the UK.

Sunday 21 April 2013

Phone/Text Blast Liverpool Councillors -Thurs, 25th April



Liverpool Councillors have refused to make a stand against the bedroom tax, despite public displays of ‘sympathy’ shown to affected tenants.

Liverpool Labour Councillors Barbara Murray, Tony Concepcion, Paul Brant, Mary Rasmussen, Mary Aspinall, Peter Mitchell, Alan Walker, Beatrice Fraenkel, Louise Baldock, Irene Rainey sit on the boards or divisional boards of Liverpool Housing Associations — picking upwards of 3k just for attending meetings.

Cllr Louise Baldock, Vice-chair of Venture Housing, recently told a crowd of anti-bedroom tax protesters that there would be no evictions over the bedroom tax, but later withdrew the statement after admitting she only said it to shut certain people up: [http://infantile-disorder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/liverpool-labour-councillor-squirms.html]

Cllr Steve Mumby recently told a tenants’ meeting that his hands ‘were tied’ over the bedroom tax: [http://combatbedroomtax.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/liverpool-labour-snubs-grassroots.html]

On the 12th April, Liverpool Council rejected a motion that called for no evictions over the bedroom tax: [http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2013/04/12/no-evictions-policy-rejected-by-liverpool-city-council/]

As the bedroom tax begins to strike 12,000 Liverpool tenants and their families, moving them further into poverty, it’s time we let our 'representatives' know that we'll be taking matters into our own hands from now on.



Liverpool Councillors on boards of housing associations

On Thurs 25th April, Phone/text blast Liverpool Councillors and let them know what you think of their refusal to axe the bedroom tax. 

You can jam the Labour Group Office phone based in Municipal Buildings on Dale St. Leave a recorded message, play music down the phone, whatever you like to let Councillors know that they can’t hide in their surgeries answering questions about potholes any longer.

Labour Group Office tel: 0151 225 2366

2 Labour Councillors, both on boards of housing associations have kindly provided their mobile phone numbers:

Councillor Louise Baldock (Venture Housing): 07774 786532
Councillor Tony Concepcion (Riverside Housing): 07874 216868

Be sure to switch your phone caller ID off in settings if you don’t want your number to go show.

Also, Libdem Cllr Richard Kemp, Chair of Plus Dane Housing, can be reached on 0151 225 2354.

You can also email Councillors. Separate their first name and surname with a fullstop and add @liverpool.gov.uk to the end, e.g.: paul.brant@liverpool.gov.uk


Phone/Text Blast Liverpool Councillors Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/495795587140631/

combatbedroomtax@gmail.com

1 comment:

  1. My name is Louise Baldock and I am a Labour Councillor for the ward of Kensington and Fairfield.

    I am also the Vice Chair of Venture Housing Association where I am an independent tenant board member – that means I am not a council appointee but there as an individual.
    I will certainly be answering my phone on Thursday, as I do all day every day. In fact the reason you have been able to publish my number is because I make it freely available to anyone who bothers to search the internet. This is because I believe in being accessible.

    However I will not be able to answer my phone between 11.30am and probably around 1pm as I will be deputising for the Mayor at the Commemoration of the Rwandan Genocide with the High Commissioner. We will be laying flowers at the new stone which has been laid in St John’s Gardens before going to a short service in the Town Hall.

    My phone will be on then until around 3.45pm when I am going into a meeting with council officers to discuss how we can ensure that the community gets full use of a wing in the Fairfield Centre on Sheil Road in our ward. We are hoping to bring a food bank and domestic violence support service there with our financial support. That meeting should hopefully be over at 5pm.

    And then at 7pm I will be going into our monthly meeting with Elm Park Tenants and Residents Association where we will be talking about the issues that those people have in their street and would like help with.

    Other than that, I should be around. However, I will probably be doing Bedroom Tax casework a lot of the time – like I was this morning when one chap phoned who presumably didn’t know he was meant to wait until Thursday. Anyway, he seemed quite pleased with what I had to say. And the woman in Newcastle who I wrote the letter for was quite pleased too. So please be aware that if I am talking to you I wont be free to talk to affected tenants about their cases – like the woman in Leicester I dealt with yesterday who needs to sleep in a different bedroom to her husband.

    Just so that you have all the fact before you before we speak, please be aware that I am on record as having called for the Government – and the Labour Party – to repeal this pernicious policy, which I did at the Full Council of March 14th. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2013/03/14/liverpool-labour-council-calls-on-national-party-leaders-to-oppose-bedroom-tax-100252-32985285/

    And I was also the person behind the original setting up of www.labouragainstthebedroomtax.org.uk when I got tired of waiting for our national leaders to speak up.

    I did give Adam Ford, author of Infantile Disorder blog a six minute interview on March 16th (and I didn’t need to do that, to be fair considering he was heckling every speaker) explaining my stance and the stance of the Labour Group in Liverpool on the bedroom tax. For ease here is the tape he made of that interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSlFxRsocbE

    I can confirm that since that interview was filmed Venture has indeed set up a hardship fund. I can also confirm that I have asked for the precise detail about our current eviction rate. You may be interested to learn that in the last two years Venture has evicted only three people. One for ASB, one for sub-letting and one for arrears – and the latter had already left the tenancy before the eviction was granted. I said to Adam on the film that Venture is not in the business of evicting people, we are in the business of housing them.

    There are only 5 days left to lodge appeals and reviews. So you will forgive me if I am very busy at the moment. I am trying to ensure that people who have failed to lodge their appeals yet get them in before it is too late. I have 35 live cases at the moment.

    So that is what I will be doing while you are trying to jam up my phone line tomorrow.

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