Beyond Housing's inability to cut grass across the borough is not just the story of a botched tender by a housing association. It's also not just a botched privatisation of a housing firm, with Redcar and Cleveland handing over housing stock to Coast and Country in the early 2000s before becoming the bigger conglomerate Beyond Housing.
The formation of BH removed the final councillors from the board of the original social housing management. BH have manifested into a what is now an oversized democratically unaccountable housing conglomerate.
BH inherited large grassed areas of public land. Now they are failing to keep good order on those patches. However, BH are also responsible for Marske square. What has happened over the past 20 years is a mass privatisation of public space through the transfer of council owned land to a private housing conglomerate. It is disaster capitalism in action and we are living with one of the symptoms - unkempt greens and economic restriction.
The ownership of Marske square by BH reduces the capacity of the council to make the square a feature and host events. Places such as Marske Square should be publicly owned and BH should do the right thing and return the square to the the council - who will improve the paving and verges and make a better economic success of it.
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