What Happened At Our Annual General Meeting

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP said she was a supporter of residents associations. It was good to see residents come together for better treatment. A collective voice can make a massive difference. Here is what happened at our AGM

33 residents present.

Guests Included:

Anthea Callum from SHG – contactus@southernhousing.org.uk
Cllr Olga Fitzroy – ofitzroy@lambeth.gov.uk
Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP – bell.ribeiroaddy.mp@parliament.uk

Apologies: Peter Hurst, Cllr Saleha Jaffer, Craig Williams

Speech by Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP

Many residents have written to Bell. Housing issues are a large amount of her caseload. Most of these are problems with disrepair such as mould. In many cases better maintenance could prevent problems. Bell has had to intervene about lack of communication, lack of urgency and inadequate compensation. Housing Associations treat residents poorly. Residents deserve better.

Bell said she was a supporter of residents associations. It was good to see residents come together for better treatment. A collective voice can make a massive difference. For example, it was the resident association’s collective voice that got the lifts fixed in Kynaston House and Sheppard House. If one person shouts loudly by themselves their case gets sorted but nobody else’s does. She said that’s why we need residents associations.

Questions to Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP

Yemi asked why successive governments are so reluctant to hold housing associations to the required standard when it comes to poor management. Bell said there is a huge worry because of the amount of housing they cover. She is happy to take on cases about a specific issue.

Sophie asked will the new government put in better measures for housing association accountability and leaseholder transparency? Bell said lots of MPs are asking for it.

Chris asked what is the best way to involve an MP in a campaign. Bell said the residents association needs to get lots of residents behind the campaign. Then the MP can intervene in arranging a meeting between the housing association and the residents.

Pablo asked what chance we have as a small group when even the Grenfell survivors couldn’t manage to get lasting change. Bell said the law is on residents’ side. Change has always come when people act together.

Cherie is stuck in a small property with 2 children and needs to move to somewhere larger. Bell said she has contacted Lambeth on Cherie’s behalf. Cllr Olga said there are 40,000 families on the Lambeth waiting list. She will make sure Cherie is in the correct place on the mailing list

A resident [minute takers note, didn’t catch their name, sorry] said cleaning in Hamers House was poor quality.

Tracey said the Portland House lift was very erratic and MTVH do not communicate with residents to explain why or when they are going to do repairs

Damp

Pablo is a SHG tenant in Hamers House. Mould is present in his flat. He wasn’t offered dry lining, only fans which are inadequate

Althea is a SHG tenant from Worthington House. They were offered fans for the bathroom and kitchen but not dry lining. This didn’t fix the problem.

Delores is a tenant in Hamers House. She has damp in her kitchen

Olu is a leaseholder with damp issues. The housing associations have not done anything.

[Minute takers note, we also discussed this in a workshop later in the meeting]

Accounts

Terry introduced the accounts. For normal residents association work we have an income of £550 that consists of a grant from MTVH and SHG. We did not receive a grant from NHG this year. Expenditure was £505.

Annalisa introduced the gardening accounts. We started the year with £15,000 based on money that we had received from previous grants but not spent. This will be enough to keep Huggins Corner maintained for several years. After that we will need to apply for more money.

SHG are auditing the accounts. They are not charging for this

Full accounts are here

Committee Elections

Cllr Olga chaired the committee elections. She said the residents association is everyone on the estate. The committee is the people who do the doing.

The following people were elected unopposed

Chair – Terry Curtis
Secretary – Chris Blake
Treasurer – Mimi Discher
Other committee Members – Alex Hughes, Peter Hurst, Cllr Saleha Jaffer, Stephen Kearney, Annalisa Premoli, Steven Rothman, Craig Williams

Amendment to Constitution

The following amendment was passed unanimously. “The Annual General Meeting agrees that next January or February, 2025, there be a Special General Meeting which can discuss the constitution and make amendments”

Workshop on damp

Present: Gary (Harbin House), Olu (Roycroft Close), Joseph (Taylor House), Verona (Hamers House), Althea (Worthington House), Janet (Hamers House), Chris (chair)

Leaseholders (Gary, Olu and Joseph) want their landlord to deal with the underlying issue. In Gary and Joseph’s case this is the broken drainage pipes in their blocks. In Olu’s case it is the pointing on Roycroft Close. Their landlords have inspected the property this decade but they haven’t seen their report. The first step is to get a copy of the surveyors report so we can see if we can prove it. We’ll discuss how to do this at the next committee meeting.

Verona is a SHG tenant. SHG have done virtually nothing effective. They have done some ineffective work such as thick wallpaper. This seems to be a problem with many other SHG tenants. We’ve forced MTVH to do a proper job largely by getting the council to threaten legal action. We should be able to do something similar here. The committee will discuss at the next meeting.

Althea is an SHG tenant. MTVH put dry lining in her flat when they managed it. This worked for ten years but is now life expired. It needs replacing. This probably affects the entire of Worthington House. The committee will consider how to get a campaign to force SHG to replace the dry lining at the next meeting

Workshop on leaseholder service charges

The workshop raised usual issues of housing associations’ lack of transparency for service charges, lack of adherence to their remit and lack of observance of leaseholder law.

We discussed options and methods to force housing associations to work within their remit, and their legal obligations towards leaseholders, including working with MPs and Social Housing Action Campaign (https://shaction.org/).

Specifically, we raised some issues raised by the recent proposals on service charges sent by NHG.

Lastly, we discussed the upcoming meeting I obtained with the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Chairman of NHG, to address these issues and how to best approach that opportunity.

Workshop on Cyclical Works

There were 9 residents present in the discussion around MTVH cyclical works.

Points discussed:

Quality of the works makes residents feel that MTVH does not care.
Residents were shown an email from the contractors by Axis where they were instructed to make the works with low cost, including adding water to paint to make it cover a longer surface.
Extreme disbelief on the decisions around materials choses, specially in relation to the floor paint.
All resident’s confirmed being unhappy with the works. All agreed that it looked better before the works were carried out.
Residents will look at the report done by MTVH and give feedback to the TRA.
Only one of the present residents has been invoiced. Residents are concerned with the bill to come.
Residents discussed what are the next steps. A general wish of making formal complaints to MTVH with the intention to escalate it to the Housing Ombudsman. Mimi requested form the TRA to be copied in [minute taker’s note: email StMartinsResidentsLambeth@gmail.com]

There is a general discontent with the quality of the works and the lack of communication from MTVH. Residents feel let down by MTVH.

Workshop on Gardening

Residents joined Thea Wong from Incredible Edible Lambeth to discuss and shape plans for a series of workshops on estates biodiversity, to be held over the coming months. Themes are likely to include how to set up bug hotels and how to grow vegetables and herbs at home. The workshops reflect ongoing interaction between IEL and the St Martin’s community gardening project.

ENDS