TRAFFORD Housing Trust has just announced its intention to start charging residents in Trafford a grounds maintenance service charge. Oh that won't affect me you may think, or will it?
This doesn't only apply to Trafford Housing Trust tenants. Oh no, it will affect leaseholders and owner-occupiers too.
What about tenants and homeowners who also benefit from these green spaces, will they be paying a service charge too? You may well ask.
From 2014, Trafford residents will be liable to pay a service charge, not for the maintenance of their own garden, but for pieces of land which Trafford Housing Trust owns and maintains.
Where and what are these pieces of land? Apparently the land varies in size and location across their estates.
It may be land that you may drive past, walk on, let your children play on or, it may just be a small piece of land.
What infuriates me about this even more, is that I've just read a news article, picturing Jane McCall of Trafford Housing, planting two Cherry trees outside the Shawe Hall Community Centre in Flixton, with the quote “We take great pride in creating enjoyable and well-maintained places for our tenants to live.”
First the bedroom tax, now the grounds maintenance tax!
Maybe I should contact my local Labour councillor, Joanne Bennett, and complain.
She is on the board of Trafford Housing Trust after all!
Gobsmacked, address supplied
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