Recognition of CBWRA – it has to be earned or else there is no incentive to address the serious problems in our residents’ association. CBWRA’s recognition is at risk because of its own governance issues – not because of me

At the meeting of Chair candidates on Saturday 25th Feb, the current Chair Mr Thompson seemed to want to make an issue of whether I had contacted Berkeley Homes regarding recognition of CBWRA. I checked my emails and in fact I did contact Berkeley Homes 5 months ago (early October 2022) to ask them to make sure to do due diligence on CBWRA before granting recognition. I did not ask them to withhold recognition from CBWRA, just to do the necessary checks because it is not in residents’ interest to have an RA recognised if it is not meeting the basic standards. Rewarding an RA that is not meet basic standards in terms of committee elections or transparency in finance for example, is to remove incentive to reform.

Specifically I would highlight the following:

It seems that CBWRA may have some ‘challenges’ in its database of members and Berkeley Homes state that CBWRA are not able to demonstrate up to date membership data received to demonstrate their level of support amongst leaseholders. CBWRA confirmed (2.3.23) that they are unable to say what percentage of leaseholders are members and that must mean that their recognition could be challenged/withdrawn by BH. if CBWRA lose their recognition it will not be because of any representation I made 5 months ago but because they do not have a proper record of their own members! i.e. another example of the poor governance I have highlighted and put at the top of my manifesto.

Berkeley Homes have confirmed to me today (2.3.23) that they have given CBWRA 6 months notice that they will withdraw their recognition. This does not have anything to do with me – BH are quite clear it is because CBWRA cannot demonstrate they have 50% of leaseholders.

”no updated membership list has been provided to Berkeley to verify that the CBWRA meet our threshold of 50% of qualifying tenants as members. Clearly this will influence the level of involvement that RA has in any tender process if it is not representative of at least 50% of leaseholders”. (extract from BH email to me 2.3.23)

A Residents’ Association which is not behaving in a democratic way – which has never held elections for committee and which has to be dragged into elections for Chair (while insulting the residents who are asking for elections), has never held a valid AGM and which is improvising the election process should not be recognised until these issues are addressed.

A certain person at CBWRA has I believe been the subject of three police complaints from former committee members (two from me and one from another person) and in my view online bullying/unacceptable behaviour on the CBW app has been fairly commonplace – if this does not indicate that there is a serious problem I do not know what does.

It is not in the long-term interest of residents to grant recognition to a Residents’ Association which does not consult, does not elect and is not transparent in its finances etc, because recognition takes away their incentive to meet the basic standards in how they deal with residents. There are problems which should be addressed such as those I have mentioned and the arbitrary closure of people’s CBW app accounts, online bullying on CBW app, lack of transparency in finances (why have membership fees just gone up by 140%?), lack of consultation with residents. These issues need to be addressed and that is in the interest of all residents. 

The importance of recognition is being hugely exaggerated by the Chair, in my view. He has said himself on the CBW app that we already had the benefits of recognition (which are basically to get the invoices and receipts for the service charge accounts and to be ‘consulted’ by the managing agent) before recognition i.e. they were being granted voluntarily by R&R. The supposed ‘privileges’ of recognition are very limited indeed.

It seems Mr Thompson may see recognition of CBWRA as his legacy as I fear there may not much else for him to point to. That is a bit sad as recognition is a very simple process requiring to have a constitution, work to it and have at least 50% of leaseholders as members.

After the reactivation of CBWRA in early 2021 (in which I was a key player) I recall that It took the Chair a very long time to get a functioning constitution together so recognition could have been had in the middle of 2021 had he been interested in obtaining it. Even now, the constitution has not been consulted on with residents and has never been approved at a valid AGM. The record shows I asked in virtually every committee meeting which I participated in, about getting the constitution together, consulting residents and holding meetings with residents and no one else on the committee was the slightest bit interested and indeed often expressed frustration that these issues were being raised. The only consultation carried out with residents in 2 years is the residents survey I carried out in summer 2021.

In my view, trying to blame me for CBWRA derecognition is just another desperate attempt to smear me in the middle of voting and the fact that someone can have their CBW app account closed without any due process or evidence, and that it would not be re-opened even when he is a candidate for Chair, suggests that CBWRA does not have good governance and is not holding a fair election.

Getting the governance of CBWRA right is essential for maintaining recognition and for progressing on Right to Manage. CBWRA governance has become very weak in my view, due to what I feel is an autocratic, remote, hierarchical and often divisive style of management and an apparent a lack of interest in engaging with residents (e.g. the paucity of meetings and consultation). I have put improving governance as a top priority in my manifesto.

I urge residents to stop defending the indefensible. My aim is simply to make CBWRA better – I am the only candidate who even addressed this issue of governance in their Chair application/manifesto. I am the only candidate who had a manifesto in fact. We should of course be recognised but we also need to get our house in order and start behaving like a normal residents’ association. I am not interested in conflict – I have worked hard for residents over many years. Please think for yourself , read my manifesto and do not allow yourself to be directed by certain parties to hate those who are actually trying to make things better. Feel free to get in touch if you would like to discuss (residents@chelseabridgewharf.org.uk)