1. Steve Starlord LinkedIn update 9th May 2016 for New Charter Housing Watch
I've been greatly honoured by my landlord NEW CHARTER HOUSING TRUST LIMITED with a
life-time banishment! My License to enter their premises and speak to their officers has been
revoked since 2007. John Ardern is my sole point of contact with the company, my guardian of
the threshold! You'll find him on Linkedin! They really really love me. They don't like those who
challenge them!
Every year I attempted to stand in the Tenant Director elections from 2007 to 2014 and every
year New Charter refused to allow my name to appear on the ballot paper. I planned to stand
many years earlier but New Charter found excuses to delay elections for 3 years, elections that
had to be held annually as per the companies Memoranda and Articles of Incorporation!
I had the legitimate right to stand. I was not in breach of any of the usual exclusions such as
being a bankrupt. Instead they chose to argue at my internal New Charter Tribunal Hearing
(kangaroo court) that my actions, particularly my blog, meant that I was not fit to be a Tenant
Director, even if elected by my peers! What's that got to do with my standing for election?
Nothing. Only after being elected to the board could the board then decide to refuse to appoint
me. That would be an entirely different matter!
Yet some of those on the boards are themselves not fit to be board members, particularly
Tameside Cllr. Ged Cooney, who despite being the Trust Chair and dealing with financial
matters was incapable of counting beyond 9! He had the right to serve on the board for a
maximum period of 9 years, ie 3 terms of 3 years, after which he would have to step-down, and
yet he had to be forced to resign after admonishment by the Government for having served 14 or
15 years on the board of directors! How crooked can you get?
I estimate that he received around £25,000 per year of tenant money, ie around £100,00 over 4
or 5 years (nice job if you can get it!) to which he was not entitled, and I bet he's not paid a
penny back! Yet I was blocked from getting on the board because of my behaviour as a tenant!
Free Speech counts for little with this bunch! And I was often complaining about the ethical
inadequacies of the Company!
Guess what! After under a year Cllr. Ged Cooney was back on the board again! And this despite a
Government criticism that the boards were lacking in fresh blood with presumably new ideas.
When all the remaining council housing was sold-off to New Charter Housing Trust Limited in
1999, one of the incentives/bribes for doing so was greater democracy, an opening-up of
democracy. My experience from the outset was the exact opposite. It was only as a result of arm-
twisting by the Government in 2006 that I was allowed in from the cold. This was my
honeymoon period before I was excluded yet again in 2007. I'm not a nodding donkey!
As the years passed the democratic deficit increased. In the beginning company directors were
all unpaid volunteers as was agreed as a condition of the transfer of properties, yet within 3-
years they were manoeuvring to get paid. They succeeded in doing so around 2005, and yet the
tenants were never told!
In 2014 they succeeded in removing the last remnant of democracy. No longer are tenants
eligible for election onto the boards. However, tenants are still required, but they are now
selected entirely by interview and no longer elected by their peers, though as said, even this was
bent because they controlled the ballot papers. There was no real independent election process
despite what they said to the contrary. The Company has gone from Bad to Worse.
Love, Light & Laughter
Steve Starlord
http://starlordsnewcharterhousingwatch.blogspot.co.uk/