Marsh Farm Outreach (MFO) are a not for profit community group who worked as volunteers from 2010 to rescue and repair Marsh House after the council bricked it up for years, causing a serious case of dry rot in the walls & first floor. Collapse and demolition was on the cards so to save the house MFO and Luton Borough Council (LBO) agreed a unique ‘rent earned’ arrangement whereby LBC paid to treat the dry rot and MFO carried out the building work needed to rescue and restore the building, with the value of MFO labour and materials counted as ‘rent earned’.
Although the 1st phase ‘rescue’ works were valued at £105k, LBC only awarded 2.5 years (£21.5k) which covered rent from 2017 to 2019. In 2020 after some acrimony and wrangling LBC Director of Property proposed a solution by way of a ‘Community Asset Transfer’ (CAT) on a peppercorn rent, bringing MFO into line with other community groups who have taken total responsibility for the upkeep of council owned buildings. This was the only fair resolution because the labour and materials MFO invested after the repair phase to bring the house back into full community use were even greater than the first rescue phase.
The issue will be brought before the Council Executive Committee on Monday July 25th.
We encourage all our supporters to attend and encourage our elected representatives to do the right thing.
If you are a resident of Luton you can complete this online form in support of Marsh House.
The current situation is a direct result of the refusal of certain elements within the Council to engage with us or recognize the demonstrable benefits of our work despite years of pleading from us for a constructive relationship. Instead we have been met with obstruction and frustration at every step of our already challenging journey.
But when reporting to councillors the Director of Property denied supporting a CAT and presented MFO as a commercial business refusing to pay rent, rather than a not for profit community group who have already more than paid the rent. The council hit MFO with a big claim for back rent (including in the lockdown!) and threat of eviction if they refused to agree to what would effectively be paying rent twice.
MFO made an official complaint and after an initial ‘whitewash’, LBC appointed their own Independent Member for Standards ,to review the evidence and propose a resolution. He said the council should extend the “ungenerous” rent earned award to 5 years thereby cancelling any supposed arrears and removing the barrier to a CAT. He also pointed out LBC’s failure to measure and take account of the “community uplift” MFO have achieved, which has seen multiple benefits to the community.
We believe this is rooted in discrimination and malice wielded by powerful people who are being allowed to infect the body politic with slander and misinformation which makes a mockery of the Council’s “Fairness 2040” agenda
Yet amazingly, the council is still refusing to do the right thing! So we are asking our fellow Lutonians for support. If you live in Luton and believe in fairness, please sign our petition to get Justice 4 Marsh House. If you’re in the area please pop in for a lovely coffee at ‘Sauce of the Lea Cafe’ (full opening soon!) & see the transformation for yourself.
The issue will be brought before the Council Executive Committee on Monday July 25th.
We encourage all our supporters to attend and encourage our elected representatives to do the right thing.
If you are a resident of Luton you can complete this online form in support of Marsh House.
This seemingly wonderful thing of bottom-up development, and people empowerment, as we call it, and lives being turned around, and buildings being transformed – why would anyone oppose that?
CAMPAIGN UPDATE, OCTOBER 26th 2022
A grassroots community group for people in Luton is being priced out of the building it rescued from dereliction more than a decade ago.
Marsh House, a former farmhouse on Luton’s Marsh Farm estate, was facing demolition by Luton Borough Council before neighbours took repairs into their own hands.
Marsh Farm Outreach (MFO), a grassroots community group, took over the site in 2011. Organisers initially struck a ‘rent earned’ agreement with Luton Borough Council, meaning the council would pay to fix a dry rot problem while volunteers would cover the resources and labour needed to restore the rest of the building without paying any additional rent.
But now the council has hiked the rent, leaving the group in thousands of pounds of debt – and facing eviction if they don’t pay.
Read the full article on the Open Democracy website here
