Government must pay Bombay
Unfree Citizen1974Housing, rents and local campaignsLoyalism and unionismBritish troops and the occupationHousing, rents and local campaignsLoyalism and unionismBritish troops and the occupation
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Scan page 6
In August 1969 Bombay Street off the Falls Road, was burnt to the ground by Loyalist thugs while the British Army stood by and watched.
Over 30 families were left homeless.
All the Stormont Govt. did for them was to put them in miserable pre-fabricated huts on waste ground.
And even the huts were provided by the British charitable organisation A voluntary group, the Bombay St. Housing Association, was set up. Money was collected in America by Bernadette McAliskey and others and donations came from all over Ireland but especially from the people of the Falls Road. Eventually Bombay St. was re-built with most of the work demand being done voluntarily by the men of the area. 33 houses were built and allocated to the former residents of The houses were modern but the rents were a lot higher than those of the old Bombay St. Most of the residents are paying £3.75 per week which doesn’t include heating and this is a heavy burden on the working Now the Bombay St. Housing Association is proposing to increase all rents by 50% and the residents can’t afford to pay. The Association say the high rents all along, and now the proposed increase, are because the were destroyed. money raised initially wasn’t enough to cover the cost of building and they had to borrow money from the Banks and the Govt.
Govt. should have re-built houses in the first place But it was the Government which should have re-built Bombay St. in the first place. It was their hate-crazed followers who brunt the houses down and their biased police force who let them do it. The Bombay St. Housing Association has saved the Govt. money by doing their job for them. It is ludicruous that they should be paying the Govt. interest on loans for houses which the Govt. are responsible for anyway.
Association should drop rent increase The people of Bombay St. éan’t afford a 50% rent increase and they shouldn’t have to pay it. The Association should drop all plans to increase the rents and demand the immediate cancellation of their “‘debt”’ to the Govt. and also that the Govt. pay off their debt to the Banks. © If Stormont and Westminster could pay out £64 million in 5 years to subsidise the Orange aristocrats of labour in the Shipyard, then let them hand over a few thousand to compensate the people of Bombay St. whose houses and possessions NO RENT INCREASE FOR BOMBAY ST.! DEMAND THAT THE GOVT. PAY OFF THE HOUSING ASSOCIATION’S DEBTS!
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The New Lodge is one of the few Since the early days of the camproximity to the Loyalist Tigers Bay ig : : - : and Shore Road, has made it the l1/ A \ be killed in N. Ireland during the i ee War of the volunteers to be killed in action was remaining old working-class anti-Unionist ghettoes in Belfast. Its isolation and frequent target for Orange fascists. : - : British army. The. first soldier ever to paign the area has been noted for its tough an spirited resistance to the { present trouble was shot dead during