Last year the Conservatives were calling for the abolition of EDMOs, today a prospective Conservative candidate, Lee Martin, is calling for them to be extended to housing associations. He makes the point that local Sunderland housing association gentoo (no capital letter) has 1253 empty homes.No we don’t say gentoo. Only “640 are gearing up to be demolished to enable gentoo to continue to provide homes for the future". Not sure I understand the logic, but this is not the first time this blog has reported problems of empty homes hanging around waiting to be demolished in Sunderland see this from last year.
Interesting idea on the EDMOs though. What bothers me is how this could actually work. The local authority would take over management of the property. The problem is they got rid of their property management function when they transferred their housing stock. The logical solution is that they could get the new stock transfer housing association to do it on their behalf. Who are they? gentoo.
Gentoo in case you were wondering is the new name for Sunderland Housing Group. Of all the strange names rebranded housing associations have given themselves this must be the worst. According to this the word comes either from a derogatory term for Hindus or a species of penguin.
