The Save Our Homes Campaign meets regularly in the Quality Inn at Glasgow Central Station and welcomes anyone concerned to join them.

Their next meeting will be Thursday 13 September at 7pm. At the last meeting, pictured above, campaigners were told that a high level European investigation of GHA was underway.

They were also informed that there is no case in law for the GHA insistence that the housing improvement bills must be repaid within 12 months.  ‘The Campaign wants a five year repayment period,’ said Sean Clerkin (pictured front row, third left).

At a subsequent meeting with the GHA, the Campaign made some progress on the issue of action against anti-social tenants. ‘There is one telephone number people can now phone to have those incidents dealt with,’ said Sean Clerkin. ‘They have not moved on the repayment time frame but we are in dialogue, which is good.’

Angry Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) home owners descended on the Glasgow offices of Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon to demand an immediate meeting with her after she had declined to meet them on several occasions to discuss their complaints.

But, she was not in! Instead, Bob Doris, SNP list MSP for Glasgow, met the protesters. They are challenging Glasgow Housing Association’s repayment plans being foisted on them. Under GHA’s £450 million home improvement plan for their  26,000 homes in Glasgow, owner occupiers will have to pay around £6,000 each within 12 months for their share of the work.

Many people are on the verge of losing their homes because of this ‘extortionate’ repayment plan.
Another complaint was about the excessive service charges owner occupiers are faced with for repairs. James McKeown, (65), has lived with his wife Faye in Eastwood since 1997. He said, ‘We recently had to get a waste water pump repaired and were quoted  £375.00 per hour. You can imagine my shock and anger at this so I got another independent quote and that came to £207 for the whole job. The first charge was clearly a rip-off.’

Bob Doris told the group of more than 30 protesters, ‘I wholly support what you are trying to achieve. I will be meeting Stewart Maxwell, Communities Minister, next week and will be demanding a root and branch review of the GHA practices.’

He added, ‘Every one here should go to their own MSP to get them on the case. If you have not gone through the right channels you cannot follow it up, which is very important.’

After the impromptu meeting, Sean Clerkin, Glasgow ‘Save Our Homes Campaign’ organiser said, ‘We are very disappointed with Nicola Sturgeon who, before the election,  told us that she agreed with our campaign and promised she would take it up. After the election, however, she has changed her mind. Apparently after speaking with GHA lawyers, she agrees that the 12 month payment plan should remain and that there should not be an auditors financial investigation. This is absolutely shocking.’

Nicola Sturgeon was invited to give a comment to be published in the LOCAL NEWS but was unable to do so by the deadline.