Gravesham Council tenants voted by 86% to reject transferring their 6,300 homes to a new landlord. The Council had opposed a ballot but are believed to have been required by Government officials to have one following support for stock transfer from a tenants' forum.
Tenants of Salisbury Council rejected stock transfer of their 5,500 homes, with 71% voting against the proposal on a turnout of 74%.
Tenants of Inverclyde Council voted in favour of stock transfer of their 7,900 homes to River Clyde Homes. Of those voting, 71.4% were in favour of the transfer proposals.
The result must have been a relief to the Scottish Executive, following recent ballots rejecting stock transfer by tenants of Edinburgh, Highlands, Renfrewshire and Stirling Councils.
Malcolm Chisholm, the Scottish Executive's Minister for Communities, announced he will require second stage transfer of Glasgow Housing Association stock to commence by summer 2007.
When Glasgow Council transferred its 80,000 homes to Glasgow Housing Association in March 2003, it promised tenants that the properties would be split between smaller, local housing organisations. This second stage transfer has taken longer than expected and this has attracted criticism.
A recent report from the Executive estimates the cost of secondary transfer at between £85 million and £195 million. This is considerably less than the estimate of £500 million pounds in a report from consultants Deloitte and DTZ on secondary transfer to 63 local housing organisations, which was commissioned by Glasgow HA. However, it is now widely accepted that 63 separate transfers are not financially viable and it is more likely that future plans will be based on 20 transfers.
Some Welsh local authorities must consider stock transfer as one of the possible ways of achieving the Welsh Housing Quality Standard by 2012. The following was the position of the 22 Welsh authorities as at December 2006:
