Liam Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill has discovered council gaffs are to blame for the delay in demolition of derelict homes on Galloway Avenue.

On 14th July, Liam received a response from Bob Taylor, Managing Director of Central Networks in which he told the Hodge Hill MP that his “disconnection team have been having difficulty in obtaining access to these properties via Birmingham City Council”.

But in a letter to Hodge Hill Councillor Gill Beddows, received on the 15th July, the council housing department tried to blame the hold ups on Central Networks for a lack of information on which houses had been disconnected. The letter claims “Central Networks cannot provide this information to us because their records are not accurate for this site”.

The revelation follows claims made by Cllr John Lines that “demolition will proceed once Birmingham City Council have received confirmation that all services have been disconnected” in the Birmingham Evening Mail on July 7th 2006.

Mr Taylor has told Liam that Central Networks have now arranged for their disconnection chiefs to meet with Birmingham City Council this week to sort the access problems out.

Liam said

“I feel the Lib Dem / Tory council have let the residents of Galloway and Darley Avenue down over this. While they pass the buck to other parties, it’s actually their inaction and incompetence that’s holding demolition work up.”

“Residents have had to put up with these anti-social behaviour hot spots for months now, and all the time it’s the council who’ve had the keys to there demolition”.

“I just hope that now we’ve banged some heads together we’ll get the result residents’ have been waiting for – these houses finally demolished like we were promised by the council last year.”

Gill said

“What an almighty mess! I dread to think how much longer the residents would have to put up with this until we started contacting the relevant people. Hopefully, our intervention will now bring an end to this farce”.

ENDS