Tenants’ fury over improvements farce

A plea for help for the people of Paisley came from the tenants of Howwood Road housing estate in Johnstone when they staged a demo outside the town hall.

The tenants chose the time of the event to coincide with an exhibition on environmental health, organised by Renfrew District Council.

The council was also responsible for the £4.5 million renovations that left the Howwood Road housing scheme damp-ridden and a health hazard.

Councillor Dan Henry, chairman of the environmental health committee, said that the show was aimed at educating the public about pollution and disease, we reported in 1979.

“If people have dirty houses and dirty habits, the future is less than bright,” he said.

“An exhibition of this sort will help people to contribute to a better environment.

“If they appreciate the cause of the disease, nuisance and dirt, they can do something about it.”

But the Howwood tenants were aware of the effects of pollution and disease and had been fighting for their homes to be cleared of damp and fungus for months.

They said that Renfrew District Council, as their landlords, were responsible for the shocking condition of their houses.

Leaflets handed to exhibition visitors and passers-by by the Howwood Road dampness action group, accused the council of failure to provide a healthy and tolerable standard of environment for the people in the Howwood scheme.

Families were being asked to occupy homes which were often in a worse condition than they were prior to modernisation, although an average of £7,000 was spent on each house, the tenants claimed.