Livin Abandon Regeneration Scheme

When Livin began their consultation exercise on the Western Area Regeneration Scheme in August last year they never would have guessed who they’d be up against, or just how formidable Great Aycliffe Residents’ Association Secretary, Arun Chandran could be. When he takes up a just cause he doesn’t just seek victory, he tends to research to the ‘nth’ degree and overwhelm his opponent.

Arun started off as one of Livin’s Champions but as they failed or refused to answer his questions, he recognised that as a local ward councillor his first duty was to his residents.

He resigned as Champion, persuaded the Great Aycliffe Residents’ Association to the cause and the rest is history.

He brought the Town Council on-side and GARA and GATC have never lost a cause yet. Livin say that 51% were in favour of Option 3 yet GARA have 340 homes signed up against Livin’s Option 3; 45 in favour of Livin and 10 don’t knows – that’s 86% of those who answered the door, with 100 houses still to go. The difference is GARA’s petition can be easily validated.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, Livin’s original bid from the Government. Livin shows they had previously agreed their scheme in 2014 with Durham County Council (DCC), so, Arun dug deeper with FOI and obtained information from the County Council which proved DCC had never agreed such a scheme.

If GARA had taken this issue to the High Court, Livin’s credibility would have been shattered! Our best case in opposing Livin was to ask residents to have meetings one to one with Livin, ask all their questions, then ask Livin to put it in writing.

Owners, tenants and private landlords signed the petition in droves.

Now that Livin have buckled under the weight of residents proven opinion, they are to be congratulated for doing so now, rather than waste any more money on a master plan, and ballot.

It would have been costly for Livin if we had to go to the High Court for judicial reviews as the law on Planning and Compulsory Purchase Orders was on our side, so GARA salute them for doing the right thing.

Livin is a social housing, not for profit, registered charity housing association. Neither they or the County Council should never, ever, be looking at reducing the social housing stock. Livin never answered the questions residents put in Newton News. Our MP and County Councillors were surprisingly quiet on this topic and did not take sides. GARA thanks Cllrs Ken Robson and Arun Chandran who knocked on doors in the sweltering heat. Thanks also to the tenants and owners who stood up together, side by side, in a principled, just and noble cause.

From the start Chairman of GARA, Syd Howarth, could not see the sense of demolishing perfectly good properties. When addressing the Town Council, attended by an unprecedented number of the general public, he pointed out the Western Area was not a Victorian slum.

His main concern was for elderly people who had bought and modernised their homes and wanted to live the rest of their lives peacefully, not faced by removal and upheaval.

GARA and Ward Councillors look forward to Livin doing it’s job as a social housing landlord and looking after the estate. People can now get on with their lives, improve their homes, etc with the uncertainty of demolition removed from their lives.

GARA is proud to have stood up for the vast majority of residents and thanks Councillors Ken Robson and Arun Chandran for their very hard work. Thanks also to Newton News for printing all the letters of concern and being the voice of the people!

Statement by Livin

Livin has released the results of its official community consultation on the proposed Western Estate Regeneration Project.

Over the past 14 months, the not-for-profit housing association has carried out extensive consultation contacting every household on the estate and presenting three options for the area.

Despite the lengthy consultation period only 280 (of 516 in total) households responded. The level of support for the options was:

• Option 1 – refurbishment of existing homes – 9%

• Option 2 – refurbishment of existing homes and partial demolition and rebuild – 17%

• Option 3 – full demolition and rebuild of the whole estate – 51%

• No preference – 23%

Alan Boddy, director of operations for Livin said: “These results show that, despite the misleading and inaccurate information being spread by a vocal minority throughout the process, 68% of residents want something to happen. However the reality is that the results also show there was not sufficiently strong community support for any one of the options. This means the physical regeneration of the estate cannot go ahead.”

The project, which had it proceeded to redevelopment, would have brought millions of pounds of investment to the area and provided more homes as well as improved community facilities, open spaces and safer street designs, would have been the largest regeneration scheme in Newton Aycliffe for years. This outcome now means that the masterplan for the estate cannot be developed and the planned Residents’ Charter that would have set out the rights and protections for all households cannot be discussed.

Mr Boddy added: “We are disappointed this cannot progress. We always said the regeneration of this estate would be led by the community and would only progress with strong community support. We are encouraging all residents and other stakeholders to now get involved and work with us to determine what is next for the Western Estate.”