IN reply to correspondent Brian Derbyshire (Letters, 3.9.2001).
It was some time in the early 1980's when Cllr Margaret Clare was a tenant activist and I was Chair of Housing that I told her, at a meeting of the New Lane Residents' Association, that we were introducing a limited amount of tenant choice, including the right to choose the colour of your front door.
And in those days, even that was an innovation. And the Council continued to buy the paint, and apply it. Both my successors as Housing Chair, Brian Iddon and latterly Noel Spencer, and their Directors and staff, built on and expanded areas of tenant choice, and I don't think they or I have anything to apologise for.
We took the view that tenants were entitled to the same dignity as anyone else. Brian Derbyshire, or anyone else can scoff if they like. As the proverb has it, "even a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."
Cllr Peter Johnston,
Kendal Road,
Bolton
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