MP meets with ‘disempowered’ St Eval residents
North Cornwall’s MP, Dan Rogerson, this weekend met with some 50 residents from the ex-MoD properties at St Eval, which were sold by the then Conservative Government to a private company, Annington Homes, in the 1980s. Ministers then leased the homes back – at considerable expense – for MoD use, but as the Ministry shuts bases down and reduces personnel in the area, it is obliged to hand the homes back to Annington.
The company holds a majority share in a local firm, set up to manage the Estate, and controls decisions on commissioning services like sewage and road maintenance for the site, which is not adopted by any local authority. Local residents are expected to pay for the maintenance of all properties on the Estate, including those previously maintained by MoD, many of which have been allowed to dilapidate.
Annington Homes has handed maintenance and repair of the homes to a new company, Mitie Scotgate, which is now hiking charges for residents. Those at the meeting in St Eval told their local MP that they had too little say in the way their money was spent, and in whether it should be taken from them at all.
Commenting after the meeting, Dan Rogerson said:
“It’s very clear that the arrangement set up by the Conservative Government in the 1980s has left residents in 2007 disempowered over the services to their own Estate, and left to foot the bill for repairing homes long-neglected by the Ministry.
“About a third of the people affected turned out to voice their concerns to me last week. I will now be seeking to meet with Annington Homes to impress on them their moral responsibility to make sure that residents are involved in decisions about their homes.
“Defence Ministers must also insist that as St Mawgan winds down, any further blocks released to Annington are returned in a liveable and structurally-sound state, so that local people don’t have to pick up the tab for vital repairs.”
