Camden: lessons to be learned

"ODPM denies Camden a way out after 'no' vote" (16 January, pages 7-9) shows that the central lesson may not have been learned.

Camden tenants were not washed down with the last rain storm; they know that the proposed arm's-length management organisation is merely another housing association in a very thin disguise.

The council's leader is quoted as saying that the ballot was a vote of confidence in Camden's housing department. This is rubbish. Tenants voted against the proposal on the ballot paper. If anything, it was a vote against housing associations.

An important part of the association sector is in a mess. In the mean time, the government should give the funding it was planning to pay to this ersatz association directly to Camden and stop messing about.