HOUSING IS NOT A SAFE HOUSE FOR THE GSD

I have stated here before that the GSD opposition- not that they take any notice of me - should not pick fights with the government in areas that its record is bad; some may even say a disaster.

The GSD has to remember that for four terms it was the Gibraltar Government and that administration’s record is the one it has to stand on. From time to time the party harks back to the days of the last GSLP Government as if what happened pre-1996 is of relevance. Only one member of the present government was in office then albeit as chief minister. However what the GSD did between 1996 and 2011 is very relevant indeed as it impacts on the here and now.

It is all very well for the former Captain of the GSD ship to willing walk the plank but that has changed nothing. He has been replaced by his former cabin boy and the GSD still has to answer for its time in government.

The new captain, cabin boy Feetham, has to learn from the Labour Party in the UK who found itself in opposition after a similarly long period in government. Feetham was a member of New Labour in the 90s and for all I know may still be a party card holder. Under its new leader, Ed Miliband, Labour has been careful first to hold up its hand to its mistakes and then to criticize the coalition in areas where the government cannot immediately return fire on its own record.

This is a skill, amongst many, that Feetham still has to learn. The captain is dead, long live the captain’s cabin boy. He may have been just the cabin boy but he was still allowed to sit at the captain’s wardroom table and took part in the decision making.

So one area where the GSD needs to hold its fire is housing. Under the Caruana government there was no housing policy, a fact admitted by the former Supreme Leader after he squeezed home in the 2003 election. For Caruana and indeed Feetham the only housing they were interested in was in Sotogrande. The fact that many Gibraltarians were forced to live across the border in La Línea in cheap flats because there was no affordable housing here did not register on the good ship GSD’s radar.

Now of course if a person goes to the GSD with a concern or complaint over housing then the party should contact the minister concerned on their behalf. Who knows Charles Bruzon may even be minded to reply and solve the matter, which is in stark contrast to when he was the opposition spokesperson when he rarely received the courtesy of a reply let alone action from the GSD minister.

The GSD in government employed a scorched earth policy to housing before it left office in 2011. There was not one housing project under way, there was not one housing project ready to go. This meant that when the GSLP Liberals came to power no new housing could be delivered until they had been planned and built. To the government’s credit it has been able to still provide homes by refurbishing housing stock that had stood neglected, abandoned, just like the GSD’s housing policy.

So before the GSD attacks the government over only allocating 324 flats, having 950 new homes underway with more in the pipeline it has to answer, to the public’s satisfaction, a number of questions. First how does it explain its scorched earth housing policy? How does it explain that many of the new homes it did provide were sub-standard? How does it explain the debacles surrounding a number of disastrous development schemes that cost the Gibraltar tax payer – you – millions of pounds? And how did it skilfully turn hundreds on the waiting list to 1,400 in 2011? When the GSD fully tells us that then we can start the process of moving on!

ALL GIBRALTARIANS HAVE THE RIGHT LIVE IN DIGNITY

I was interested to read the recent statement from the Glacis Estate Tenants Association voicing their view that they welcome the proposed improvements to their estate but oppose the building of an additional floor.

Shortly before the General Election last December I sat in on a meeting where a group of women who are residents at Constitution House on the Glacis Estate voiced their concerns and aired their complaints. They brought with them photographs of the state of the blocks of flats in which they live.

Their complaints included:

Children from a nearby school playing truant and hiding out on the top floor of their high rise block of flats.

Fires being started deliberately in the rubbish shoots.

Acts of vandalism in the lifts and public areas.

The lack of smoke and fire alarms in public spaces.

At least one person openly selling drugs from one of the flats.

The poor maintenance and structural state of some flats.

A general lack of policing and security.

The women made two comments on their situation. The first was that as their estate and the Laguna opposite were the first that visitors from Spain see when entering the Rock they were ridiculed because of the perceived “poor state in which Gibraltarians live”. They are second class citizens on their own Rock.

The second was that it was shameful that their estate was so run down especially as it was opposite the luxury developments on the harbour on the opposite side of the road. They seemed to suggest it was shameful that the residents of the luxury harbour apartment developments should have to suffer their poor estate alongside.

I made the point to them that their situation was shameful wherever they lived: because everybody had the right to live in dignity. Many of the residents of these estates live in shameful conditions yet they are still clinging on to their dignity. Their situation, as the GSLP Liberal government recognises, needs to be rapidly addressed.

Ask yourself would it be acceptable for the luxury harbour developments to have school children playing truant on the top floor? No it wouldn’t!

Would it be acceptable for vandals to set fires in their rubbish shoots? No it wouldn’t!

Would it be acceptable for a drugs dealer to openly operate from one of the luxury apartment? No it wouldn’t.

The answer would be “No it wouldn’t” to any other such question you may set. The rationale may be that if you pay one million pounds for a luxury apartment you are buying a better quality of life than those on a government estate. I would argue that the million pounds buys you a luxury apartment with a view over the harbour but the quality of life should be the same wherever you live: be you rich, middle income or poor.

Due to the situation in these blocks of flats and on these estates the residents are not only poorly housed but suffer stress, low living conditions, live in fear of vandalism and violence with pressures on their children from the truant and drugs culture. Google Glacis and you will find the search topped by two drugs raids on the estate.

As the GSD government left office without one single government housing scheme in progress or in the planning stage the GSLP Liberal administration has had to start from scratch. This state of affairs would have been understandable if the GSD was intent on pursuing a scorched earth policy so the incoming government had to clear up the mess. However given the election could have gone either way it means the GSD had made absolutely no provision for future government housing or the need to reduce the lengthy waiting list should it have been returned to power. This was bad politics and showed sheer contempt for the needy in Gibraltarian society.

The urgent need has to be to carry out major programmes at Glacis, Laguna and the Moorish Castle Estates not to just reclad them to make them look better but to solve the major problems beneath that cladding these communities of tenants have to live with. This is not a housing problem but a cross ministry problem from education to policing. Out must go the truants; out must go the drug dealers; the rubbish shoots have to be secured; fire and smoke alarms have to be installed; vandalism has to be eradicated and if the Royal Gibraltar Police does not have the manpower or the inclination to make them secure then private security should be employed. It is simply not acceptable to take the view that “these estates have social problems because they are where poorer government housing tenants live: what else would you expect?” What might be the norm for a British or Spanish inner city sink estate should not be acceptable in the small community that is Gibraltar.