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More problems will prevail if tower
block plan goes ahead
Rob Davies' article (Tower block
plan will ruin Queens Park, W&V, August 5)
highlights several issues, but there are more.
The project will bring into the
area a great deal of distress and anger in the form
of tenants maddened by bad mangement and poor
services.
The Genesis Housing Group, in
essence Paddington Churches housing association,
have a wretched reputation for almost every aspect
of their operation.
They and many of their associate
companies run their management board meetings in
secret, along with the agenda papers and even the
minutes of their discussions. They never hold
comprehensive independently run tenants
satisfaction surveys and cover up the ensuing mess
with a complaints procedure which is worthless,
culminating in the Housing Ombudsman Service, an
organisation which seems to do nothing because it
is funded entirely by landlords and is worth as
much as a chocolate teapot.
When it comes to profitability, for
a non profit making company, they are doing well.
They make about £64,000 profit
per day, and pay their chief executive, Anu Vedi,
about £2500 per week out of our rent money
whilst, for instance, refusing to unblock a chimney
that they blocked because it would be too expensive
(as a result, the tenant has no heating).
This whole project appears ill
conceived.
Certainly we need affordable
housing, but it can be put together by
organisations which care about their tenants and
the impact on the neighbourhoods that will be
affected.
The social housing sector's
regulator, the Housing Corporation, is a toothless
joke, frightened of offending the offenders. There
needs to be accountablity.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Rutherford.
Press Relations,
Independent Federation of Genesis
Residents.
http://www.ifgr.org.uk
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