Housing issue is taken to the top

Ronkswood resident Jon Baddeley, who has lived in his Ripon Road house for the past 24 years, has vowed to write a letter to Tony Blair - and deliver it to Number 10 himself.

Last week, he urged all 5,000 council tenants in the city to lobby the Government over its policy of encouraging local authorities to sell off their housing stock.

Now, he and his friend Tom Burton have decided to take their gripe one step further. They want the council to keep the houses on.

"I would post it, but it'll only go to Tony Blair's secretary and he won't see it for three months," Mr Baddeley said.

"I'm going to take it to him personally.

"And if anyone else wants to join my protest, they can. I'll be going down by coach."

The 63-year-old brandished a placard at last week's city council housing board meeting, with thewords "Stop the sale of council houses now".

He told board chairman Councillor Francis Lankester: "You're being pushed against the wall."

"And if that was me, being pushed against a wall, I'd fight back."

Coun Lankester hit back, saying: "Even with my honeyed tongue, I don't think I could convince Gordon Brown to change his mind," he said.

"But by all means, keep trying."

Coun Neil Monkhouse asked for a letter to be sent to Worcester MP Mike Foster outlining the council's displeasure at having to make the decision to either sell off its housing stock, hand the management over to an "arms-length" company or keep it.

He spoke out after HACAS Chapman Hendy director Chris Woods told the housing board that a total sell-off was the only viable option.

"The bottom line is if we do decide to do nothing, we've got to look at making between £200,000 and £300,000 of savings this year," added Coun Lankester.

"That's considerably less than the £620,000 we had to make last year. But this time it'll mean cutting staff, not just services.

"Even now, I can see that estates are decaying. In three to four years time, it'll all come back to haunt us."