The London Borough of Hounslow has had a bid accepted for funding by the Criminal Justice Board for five community projects, rebuilding and redecoration of the ROSE Community Centre on the Syon estate which was hit by an arson attack last year.
The £4 million booty is being made available from recovered criminal assets.
We need your vote to ensure our local schemes go ahead. Go to Community Cashback, scroll down to Community Involvement Days, click on it to select, scroll down to the bottom of the page, enter your email address (optional), and then click on the 'Have Your Say' button. It isn't the simplest of pages, but your vote must be registered by Friday, 18th September.
This afternoon the ICG leafleted the estate to alert residents to the opportunity. Please give a few minutes of your time to cast your vote and bring this much needed-funding to Hounslow and to Syon.
Showing posts with label Residents Of Syon Estate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Residents Of Syon Estate. Show all posts
Saturday, 12 September 2009
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Out and about with the RSLs - Part One
Despite the gout coming back yet again with a vengeance I managed to stay on my feet for most of the day yesterday to tour the borough with Paul Doe, Chief Executive of Shepherd's Bush Housing Group (SBHG) and Chair of the Hounslow Housing Association Forum.
Shepherd's Bush is one of the larger Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and it owns a diverse portfolio of properties around the borough from individual, restored street properties, through small isolated schemes comprising a dozen or so units, to medium-sized stand-alone developments. In my own back yard SBHG manages a major chunk of the Smallberry Green estate, in Syon ward.
It would be fair to say - and I did say it to Paul at the first opportunity - that my initial experience of RSLs in this borough left me somewhat unimpressed. Indeed it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to suggest that it left me emotionally scarred. As a tenant myself living on Isleworth's West Middlesex estate I spent the first seven or so years trying to make meaningful contact with my landlords to point out to them that the contractor responsibile for putting the buildings up had omitted to install any soundproofing. Three of these valuable years were used up trying to teach them, ultimately to no avail, how to respond to an e-mail.
When I did finally establish proper contact with somebody capable of communicating in polysyllables I spent the next couple of years trying to coax them out of a perpetual state of knee-jerk denial. Many arguments were had, and an embarrassingly fraudulent sound attenuation survey was even conducted to "confirm" the existence of visibly non-existent soundproofing as part of an overall strategy clearly designed to wear us down into silence.
The tragedy of it all was that our landlords had an agreement with their contractor that any faults reported within ten years from the date of construction would be put right at no cost to themselves. Had they worked with us rather than argued with us, they could have compelled the contractor who had ripped them off with substandard work to come back and finish the job gratis, thereby improving the quality of their stock.
The efforts of tenants to launch and sustain a successful residents' association encountered similarly insurmountable obstacles. Earlier in the process there was the usual attempt to politicise us, and when that fell flat due to the vigilance of residents the estate's three landlords all quickly lost interest in supporting us. The community centre ended up as a private nursery for well-healed residents from off the estate, for which payment is extracted both from hirers in the form of a usage charge and - simultaneously - from tenants of the estate who are no longer able to use the premises through service charges.
Shepherd's Bush Housing Group is clearly of an altogether different mindset. Indeed in the field of tenant engagement - in service management as well as simply in community life - it is in many respects ahead of us at the local authority. Paul understood - I mean he already understood, he didn't require me to tell him - that getting tenants involved in such areas as quality control and reporting problems and issues can save the landlord money and enable it to deploy its limited resources more productively as well as being good for Community Engagement in a more general sense.
SBHG encourages tenants' associations, and has a tenants' forum which it funds and supports. Where the establishment of an association isn't feasible, it has a network of Tenant Monitors, three of whom I had the privilege of meeting at schemes in Hounslow and Bedfont. Tenants help to produce the Group's publication and website, and SBHG is currently looking into the viability of creating an e-mail forum for those residents who wish, or are compelled by their lifestyle, to engage differently.
All members of staff employed by SBHG must meet at least four residents in their natural habitat, reminding them in dramatic style of the raison d'etre of a housing provider. And Paul himself hosts a number of "Meet the Chief Executive" meetings, where tenants can come along and ask questions, provide information or simply let of steam according to their wont.
On Monday afternoon I will be attending the borough's first RSL Conference at Hounslow Civic Centre. As the need for social housing becomes ever more acute the RSLs will play an increasingly important role in helping us to bring it about. There has never been a more important time for us and them to find out a little more about how each other works.
Shepherd's Bush is one of the larger Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and it owns a diverse portfolio of properties around the borough from individual, restored street properties, through small isolated schemes comprising a dozen or so units, to medium-sized stand-alone developments. In my own back yard SBHG manages a major chunk of the Smallberry Green estate, in Syon ward.
It would be fair to say - and I did say it to Paul at the first opportunity - that my initial experience of RSLs in this borough left me somewhat unimpressed. Indeed it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to suggest that it left me emotionally scarred. As a tenant myself living on Isleworth's West Middlesex estate I spent the first seven or so years trying to make meaningful contact with my landlords to point out to them that the contractor responsibile for putting the buildings up had omitted to install any soundproofing. Three of these valuable years were used up trying to teach them, ultimately to no avail, how to respond to an e-mail.
When I did finally establish proper contact with somebody capable of communicating in polysyllables I spent the next couple of years trying to coax them out of a perpetual state of knee-jerk denial. Many arguments were had, and an embarrassingly fraudulent sound attenuation survey was even conducted to "confirm" the existence of visibly non-existent soundproofing as part of an overall strategy clearly designed to wear us down into silence.
The tragedy of it all was that our landlords had an agreement with their contractor that any faults reported within ten years from the date of construction would be put right at no cost to themselves. Had they worked with us rather than argued with us, they could have compelled the contractor who had ripped them off with substandard work to come back and finish the job gratis, thereby improving the quality of their stock.
The efforts of tenants to launch and sustain a successful residents' association encountered similarly insurmountable obstacles. Earlier in the process there was the usual attempt to politicise us, and when that fell flat due to the vigilance of residents the estate's three landlords all quickly lost interest in supporting us. The community centre ended up as a private nursery for well-healed residents from off the estate, for which payment is extracted both from hirers in the form of a usage charge and - simultaneously - from tenants of the estate who are no longer able to use the premises through service charges.
Shepherd's Bush Housing Group is clearly of an altogether different mindset. Indeed in the field of tenant engagement - in service management as well as simply in community life - it is in many respects ahead of us at the local authority. Paul understood - I mean he already understood, he didn't require me to tell him - that getting tenants involved in such areas as quality control and reporting problems and issues can save the landlord money and enable it to deploy its limited resources more productively as well as being good for Community Engagement in a more general sense.
SBHG encourages tenants' associations, and has a tenants' forum which it funds and supports. Where the establishment of an association isn't feasible, it has a network of Tenant Monitors, three of whom I had the privilege of meeting at schemes in Hounslow and Bedfont. Tenants help to produce the Group's publication and website, and SBHG is currently looking into the viability of creating an e-mail forum for those residents who wish, or are compelled by their lifestyle, to engage differently.
All members of staff employed by SBHG must meet at least four residents in their natural habitat, reminding them in dramatic style of the raison d'etre of a housing provider. And Paul himself hosts a number of "Meet the Chief Executive" meetings, where tenants can come along and ask questions, provide information or simply let of steam according to their wont.
On Monday afternoon I will be attending the borough's first RSL Conference at Hounslow Civic Centre. As the need for social housing becomes ever more acute the RSLs will play an increasingly important role in helping us to bring it about. There has never been a more important time for us and them to find out a little more about how each other works.
Monday, 6 April 2009
At the Coach & Horses on Sunday afternoon
The Mayor, the Deputy Mayor and other Isleworth councillors joined scores of local residents at the Coach & Horses, London Road at the new landlord Kevin's funday this weekend.The event was held to promote the new management of the pub and to encourage people to support their local pub.
Although the stalls, the free hog roast, ice creams and candy floss, and real ale at £1 per pint may have been a contributing factor in the decision of some to pay a visit, the size of the turnout from the Syon estate - leafleted on the pub's behalf by ICG volunteers - suggests that hopefully the Coach & Horses is on course to become a real local's local once again.
The Coach & Horses has always been a popular pub, with live music, good beer and good food, but in recent times its popularity had been on the decline. Isleworth man Kevin hope to reverse its fortunes by restoring its customer focus. As a local man Kevin has been helpful to the ICG, providing a home for our councillors' surgeries following the recent fire at the ROSE
Centre across the road.A big well done and thank you to Kevin and his staff, and the very best of luck for the future.
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Keeping in the picture
I've been enjoying a short holiday at Rookley on the Isle of Wight with my family this half-term week, but with mobile technology and the internet there is no reason any more not to be always in the picture with what is happening back home.
I was saddened to hear this morning of two fires, one of which has caused considerable damage to the ROSE Community Centre on the Syon estate and another, even more tragically, in Mogden Lane which sadly resulted in a fatality.
Then there was what under the circumstances was a slightly awkward, but in my view still necessary conversation to be had with a local newspaper which, possibly inadvertently, ignored the Syon ward councillors when looking for a comment on the ROSE fire and went instead to those in neighbouring Brentford. This happens quite a lot to us in Syon, there is some degree of resignation to our presence in Isleworth but many are still in denial about our more recent success in Syon.
The island, predictably, is cold and - well - wintery. Nonetheless it is nice to get away and recharge the batteries for next week's onslaught of meetings, beginning with a day-long interviewing panel on Monday.
The casework, in the meantime, doesn't stop for a holiday. Modern technology has seen to that.
I was saddened to hear this morning of two fires, one of which has caused considerable damage to the ROSE Community Centre on the Syon estate and another, even more tragically, in Mogden Lane which sadly resulted in a fatality.
Then there was what under the circumstances was a slightly awkward, but in my view still necessary conversation to be had with a local newspaper which, possibly inadvertently, ignored the Syon ward councillors when looking for a comment on the ROSE fire and went instead to those in neighbouring Brentford. This happens quite a lot to us in Syon, there is some degree of resignation to our presence in Isleworth but many are still in denial about our more recent success in Syon.
The island, predictably, is cold and - well - wintery. Nonetheless it is nice to get away and recharge the batteries for next week's onslaught of meetings, beginning with a day-long interviewing panel on Monday.
The casework, in the meantime, doesn't stop for a holiday. Modern technology has seen to that.
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