{"id":5161,"date":"2015-08-07T13:52:49","date_gmt":"2015-08-07T12:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=5161"},"modified":"2015-08-07T14:28:47","modified_gmt":"2015-08-07T13:28:47","slug":"victory-for-community-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=5161","title":{"rendered":"Victory for community action"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite community member Paul Rooney, a Bromley resident and full-time carer of his severely disabled daughter, has been granted a stay of eviction today (August 7) after being mistakenly served with a \u00c2\u01412,000 council tax bill from more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

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The stay of eviction comes in the wake of concerted campaigning from Unite community and industrial members, dozens of whom stood outside Rooney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home last month as bailiffs descended to evict a man who had become the victim of his council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s privatise-at-all-costs regime.<\/p>\n

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As UNITElive has reported<\/a>, Rooney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bogus council tax bill ballooned to \u00c2\u014151,000 after Liberata, the private company running council tax collection for Bromley council, tacked on \u00c2\u014149,000 in fees to his original bill.<\/p>\n

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After debt collection proceedings, Rooney was declared bankrupt last year.<\/p>\n

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Although Bromley council and Liberata continue to make the case that the bill is legitimate, Liberata and other similar outsourcing firms on local authority contracts have a long history of failure in running council services.<\/p>\n

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Rooney, who has lived in his same home in Bromley since 1990, fears that if evicted, his daughter Roisin, who suffers from a rare chromosome disorder and cannot talk, will no longer be able to visit – the bulky equipment used to care for her will not be able to fit in a homeless hostel.<\/p>\n

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He argues that the eviction will only end up costing the taxpayer more money after he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s declared homeless and rehoused by the council.<\/p>\n

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Rooney is set to be back in court in February of next year.<\/p>\n

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Unite Community co-ordinator Pilgrim Tucker was optimistic about today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s court decision.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bToday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outcome is a victory for Paul and a victory for community action,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not out of the woods just yet, but that Paul has been granted a stay of eviction means we have more time to continue to support him as we wage this battle together against a heartless council that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s put private profit over community welfare.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are showing, yet again, that people power, if mobilised, can successfully take on vested interests.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Stay tuned as on UNITElive as Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story unfolds.<\/p>\n

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Those interested in donating to Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legal fund may contact Alan Shaw at Bromleytradescouncil@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite community member Paul Rooney, a Bromley resident and full-time carer of his severely disabled daughter, has been granted a stay of eviction today (August 7) after being mistakenly served with a \u00c2\u01412,000 council tax bill from more than a decade ago.   The stay of eviction comes in the wake of concerted campaigning from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[131,232],"wps_subtitle":"Eviction stay for Paul Rooney ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5162,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5161\/revisions\/5162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}