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T.A.N.T. Newsletter #4

TANT Summer Newsletter

Welcome to our summer newsletter. We hope everyone has been enjoying this exceptionally warm summer.

TANT officers meet with the Chair of the National Trust annually, and were pleased to hold a recent video-conference with the new Chair,
Rene Olivieri.

Being new to the role, he explained that he would have a watching brief over the agenda items, which we discussed with Giles Hunt, NT Director for the Let Estate, and Jan Lasik, NT General Counsel and Secretary.

The key discussion points were:

  1. NT Rent Reviews. TANT campaigned successfully for a rent freeze in 2020 and 2021. As you are no-doubt aware, the NT are now progressing rent reviews on a case-by-case basis.TANT maintained its stance that NT rents must be affordable, take account of the surge in the cost of energy and living in general, and that NT homes are often old and very expensive to heat.The NT said it must balance its commercial requirements and charitable objectives with the needs of tenants. If you haven’t already seen them, please see our tips on dealing with rent reviews on our website (link here). Please contact us if you are having particular problems.
  2. Improvement to the NT Complaints Procedure to add an external, independent element as the final stage. We were told that the NT accept this suggestion and are now moving in this direction.
  3. NT Tenant Membership should allow tenants to vote at AGMs. Several years back, TANT campaigned to get NT membership for all tenants. NT Tenant Membership includes free access and parking to NT sites and regular NT magazines, but our membership doesn’t grant voting rights. We think this anomaly needs addressing.The NT continues its position that, to obtain voting rights, tenants would have to pay the membership fee (age and family discounts apply). We will continue to call for voting rights for all tenants.
  4. The need to continue TANT’s funding. At the inception of TANT 20 years ago, it was our ambition that all tenants would be members of the association free-of-charge.TANT is run entirely by volunteers and the NT has, to date, reimbursed our running costs. This is sometimes at issue with NT’s directors as it is at the moment. We are working with the NT to get our funding renewed.

TANT expects to meet with the Chair and NT Directors again next Spring.

There is more news to follow in our next newsletter so, if you have any neighbours or friends who are NT tenants (including commercial and farms) please ask them to subscribe here.

Thanks, TANT.