The CBWRA Annual General Meeting April 2023.

*CBWRA plans to spend huge sums on new fountains *no meaningful response on massive service charge increases * CCTV installed in block foyers with no consultation *no action on management audit

*CBWRA proposes to spend huge sums on new fountains * No meaningful response on massive service charges * CCTV installed in block foyers with no consultation *no action on management audit.

The Chelsea Bridge Wharf Annual General meeting was held on 23rd April, 10.30-11.30, The Turbine Theatre (BPS Arches). For the second year running the meeting was inquorate (less than 25% of members attending in person/zoom). This is not surprising given that little or no effort was made to engage residents/leaseholders apart from posts on the CBW app and the CBWRA mailing list, meaning that hundreds of leaseholders were potentially unaware of the meeting. As with last year, the requirements in the CBWRA constitution to notify residents at their home addresses (i.e. a leaflet or letter) was ignored and indeed CBWRA have tried to change the constitution so that this is no longer required (this change is not valid since the constitution has not been approved at an AGM). I am sorry to have to say that this sums up very well the CBWRA committee’s lack of imagination and/or competence in communicating with residents. The CBWRA committee do not seem to have anything meaningful to say to residents and do not want to consult with residents or are incapable of doing so : it seems that this dysfunctional culture (which in my view was created by the previous Chair) will be continued under the new ‘co-Chairs’.

I submitted three motions to be voted on at the meeting and these are closely linked.

Motions submitted by Mike O’Driscoll (Warwick)

i) that CBWRA release to  residents, without delay, full details of the analysis/report/research conducted by Roger Southam in relation to ‘audit’ of service charge accounts, which has been paid for out if residents subscription fees
(this information was finally released to residents a few days before the AGM, after I let CBWRA know that I was would raise this motion, so this did not need to be voted on). It is extraordinary that CBWRA had refused to share this information with residents or to share Mr Southam’s judgement that Rendall and Rittner were seriously overcharging (he used much stronger language in fact ) and he particularly pointed to excessive staffing costs (we now have the additional factor of massively inflated energy costs) . For reasons best known to themselves and without residents consultation CBWRA have decided not to take forward the audit work and so residents are potentially losing the chance to reclaim large sums of money from Rendall and Rittner.

i) That CBWRA proceeds with the option offered by Roger Southam to take his initial work forward  with a capped cost of £9,000

Given that the findings of the initial work were so clear, it is hard to understand why CBWRA committee have decided (without resident consultation) not to take this work forward. An audit was originally proposed by  myself in early 2021 and this was prevented from going forward by the former Chair Stephen Thompson and some other committee members, who also refused to consult with residents about this (despite 50% of committee members wishing to consult residents on the decision). An audit was promised again in January 2022 (around election time which I am sure was a coincidence😊) and then nothing happened until December 2022 when some initial audit was done at a cost of £6,000 but which the CBWRA committee refused to releases to residents until I out down a motion for the AGM (see above).

It is also unclear why Roger Southam originally agreed to take this forward on a ‘’no win no fee’’ basis but then changed his mind because (according to the most recent CBWRA ”newsletter”) he would ‘not be able to approach the large number of leaseholders necessary’). That is quite hard to understand given that at least 50% could be directly contacted by email (CBWRA says it has 50% of leaseholders in its database). The committee are now mumbling something about residents being able to opt in to taking this work forward if they wish (i.e. another big time wasting fudge which leads to nothing happening). Why should leaseholders not simply be given a vote on the matter (preferably a fair one where they do not receive highly biased briefings which leads them to vote against). CBWRA state in the AGM meeting notes that resident consultation is needed before taking this forward but in that case why have they not offered a vote or consultation on that?

iii) That CBWRA, without delay, put out to open tender the advertising on the CBW app, especially the estate agent advertising (currently Garton Jones have exclusive use of this, free of charge)

This motion relates to the fact that Garton-Jones estate agents has had exclusive use of the estate agent advertising slot on the CBW app since 2021 and that they were paying just £504 a year for this and that even this charge was dropped around 2021 so that Garton-Jones have free and exclusive use of the estate agent slot on the CBW app. As I pointed out in my manifesto this seems a very odd arrangement given that commission on a single flat sale is likely to be worth £8-10K to Garton-Jones, and therefore I said I would have this arrangement reviewed if elected as Chair. You may also recall that Garton-Jones urged its client list to vote for Larissa and Louis, and in a massively inappropriate intervention actually emailed the survey link to its client list with this recommendation. It has since transpired that Garton-Jones are not even paying £504 – they are apparently getting exclusive use of the estate agent advertising on the CBW app for free! At least one other estate agent contacted CBWRA expressing interest in the CBW app advertising (about 6 months ago) and was ignored, which is hard to understand. I feel residents are losing a lot of revenue here potentially and that revenue could be used to offset the cost of an audit on the service charge accounts, which CBWRA have absurdly said they cannot afford to do. Following my submission of this motion, CBWRA are now belatedly talking about investigating getting advertising revenue from the app but as ever the process is unclear and lacking in transparency.

CBWRA committee put forward the following to be voted on:

i) ratification of the constitution (although there been no consultation on the constitution) 
ii) ratification of the committee (i.e. there will be no committee elections)  
iii) 140% increase in CBWRA membership fees (from £20 a year to £48) – no meaningful explanation has been given for this increase.

As the meeting was inquorate, none of the motions were put to a vote. This means that none of my motions were passed but they have already been effective in forcing the release of Roger Southam’s initial analysis and CBWRA are now (so they say) looking at ways of generating revenue from CBW app advertising. What a coincidence!

The fact that the meeting was not quorate also means that the CBWRA committee motions were not voted on – so the committee are not ‘ratified’ (nor are they elected); the constitution is not ratified and the 140% membership fee increase has not been approved by members. According to the constitution the AGM should be rescheduled as soon as possible, so there will be (or should be ) another AGM in the near future though I suspect CBWRA will try to drag it out as long as possible and it may not happen until August.

2. Things that residents were not being offered a vote on at the AGM but should be:

i) Planting of ponds/fountains Despite the very welcome standing down of Stephen Thompson, it seems that the culture of not consulting residents remain firmly in place. Although residents made it clear in the Residents Survey that they favoured filling in some of the ponds/fountains and despite  the fact that a consultation on this was promised at the last AGM in May 2022, it is now clear that CBWRA committee does not intend to consult with residents on this – rather they intend to keep the  fountains and ponds as they are and (incredibly) so start a ‘sinking fund’ FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW FOUNTAINS! This is detailed in the bizarre document which they circulated a few days ago entitled  ‘CBW Water features – Historic expenditure’ which claims that the fountains are costing approximately £100,000 a year to run (this does not even include electricity – the cost of which (for the pumps) is huge). This strange document states (without any supporting evidence)

‘’CBWRA is proposing to dramatically decrease any further expenditure on the fountains, and start a sinking fund that will contribute to the erection of the new fountains, that will work really well with seasonal trees, and be designed to be low maintenance and cheaper to run, as well as require less water’’.

So CBWRA plans to ‘dramatically decrease’ expenditure on the fountains, not by planting them in as most want, but by leaving them as they are and in X? years wasting several hundred thousand pounds on new fountains! All of this with zero consultation with residents. At the last AGM (May 2022) residents were promised a vote on the future of the fountains (I said at that meeting that we would probably hear no more about it after the meeting and that has proved to be the case). We have been told of over a year that a member of the committee was producing costed options to vote on, but instead of that we have a ludicrous and superficial one-sided document which simply states the case for keeping the fountains for now and replacing them with new ones in an unspecified number of years! I am not surprised the author did not put her name on this document which insults residents’ intelligence.

The fountains use huge amounts of electricity (there are a large number of pumps needed to keep them going) and water. To keep running them all at current electricity prices (not to mention maintenance) is absolutely ridiculous and the very opposite of what we should be doing. A ballot of leaseholders is needed on an urgent basis without further timewasting. The Chair/s were unable to explain why there has been no consultation over the last year and were unable to say when there would be one.

This way of doing things is insulting residents’ intelligence and suggest very little has change under the new co-chairs.

ii) CCTV cameras in block foyers . This has already happened (at the specific request of CBWRA committee) in many blocks including Warwick with zero consultation with residents either on the cost or positioning of the cameras.  No signage exists to tell residents that CCTV is in operation, which is a violation of GDPR. It is not clear what the cost is or indeed the rationale, apart from some vague references to parcels being stolen. According to Rendall and Rittner, the cameras are not currently recording but will be shortly. Whether or not you support CCTV in block foyers, to do this with no consultation shows that no lessons have been learned from the way the security guards were hired in December, which outraged many residents and which was a complete waste of money, in my view.

3. Right to Manage – CBWRA have stopped denying it is possible (at last) but very little progress on taking  it forward. 

You may recall that up until Quarter 4 last year, CBWRA were claiming in the most unequivocal terms that Right to Manage was not possible at Chelsea Bridge Wharf. A newsletter was circulated to that effect in May 2022 and this also said that I (Mike O’Driscoll)  residents for saying that Right to Manage WAS possible and my CBW app account was closed on this absurd pretext and no evidence has ever been given of any community guidelines or rules being broken by me, despite many requests to the previous Chairs and the current ones. It is of course simply censorship, silencing those who criticise the CBWRA committee.

After I obtained and published independent advice showing that Right to Manage was possible for the whole development it seems CBWRA committee changed their mind but they have never explained why they did that and have not apologised to me or other residents for the wasted time (2 years) and money. My CBW app account remains closed, simply because CBWRA committee cannot cope with someone who challenges their narrative, even though that narrative has been shown to be wrong on many occasions (e.g. with the claim that Right to Manage was not possible).This also made a fair election for Chair impossible in February 2023.

Larissa and Louis claim to be supporting Right to Manage, and I hope that they are, but what progress have we seen so far? In December 2022 the CBWRA committee claimed they were getting three legal opinions about Right to Manage at CBW (in order to determine whether RTM should be block by block or for the whole development). I think it is already perfectly clear from the independent advice that I obtained that RTM can only be for the whole development (as all blocks are linked by the underground car park and so are considered one unit for the purposes of RTM) so I am not clear why this further advice is needed and it strikes me as yet another stalling tactic. We are now in late April and where is this advice?

More generally, where is the plan and timescale for achieving Right to Manage? There has been no attempt to engage with residents off the CBW app and hardly any attempt on the app. How can we hope to get 50% of leaseholders signed up to Right to Manage when the CBWRA committee routinely ignores leaseholders (and other residents), patronises us and insults our intelligence? It is hard to imagine how 50% of leaseholders can be signed up for Right to Manage when CBWRA can not even get 25% to come to a meeting, even online or by proxy.

The email to residents on the CBWRA contact list contained links to the agenda for the AGM and other documents (such as the laughable document which proposes to spend several hundred thousand pounds on new fountains) the meeting which were inaccessible to those who are not on the CBW app (or those who have had their accounts closed for pointing out that CBWRA was apparently misinforming residents about Right to Manage:). Hopefully one of the RTM consultants shortlisted can progress signing up residents but they will have their work cut out given the lack of engagement generally.

4.Massive service charge increases – a lack of CBWRA response  

Service charges for Warwick increased by up to 49% for some leaseholders from April 1 2023 (the block average was 40%). More than 80% of this increase was attributed to electricity price rises and as I have detailed these increase seem in large part to be due to very poor tendering decisions made by Rendall and Rittner. CBWRA seem to have little or nothing to say in terms of analysing, interpreting or challenging these costs. Neither is there any evidence of a plan to reduce energy consumption or develop renewables (e.g. solar panels) other than a very belated decision to start ‘looking at ‘ solar panels in the last few weeks. Failure to address this is shocking – it should have been our top priority 2 years ago. This is not just a Warwick issue as the same electricity increases will  be coming to other blocks at the start of the next service charge accounting period (which is June for many blocks).

5. CBWRA accounts and finances

This again is something that I have had to fight for over 2 years to obtain. Up till this time CBWRA have never produced a meaningful statement of income and expenditure. The information provided, when we finally got it was unclear to say the least and some might feel was more obfuscating than enlightening. We were told that £7,500 had been spent on ”Right to Manage and retender consultations”. In fact this seems to be the money wasted on the management contract retendering with Roger Southam and has nothing to do with Right to Manage and there certainly was no consultation with residents about this.

No meaningful justification was given for the 140% increase in membership fees but at least CBWRA have said that those who wish to pay at the old rate can do so, so credit for that.

6. CBWRA Achievements of 2022

It was amusing to hear the former Chair talk about ‘achievements’. The two years of Mr Thompson’s ‘leadership’ have been largely wasted IMHO, with no action on Right to Manage, thousands wasted on the doomed ‘management contract retendering’, massive increases in service charges and CBWRA membership fees and deteriorating services. Online bullying on the CBW app has become commonplace and the CBWRA committee have, in my view, misinformed residents on important matters (especially in stating that Right to Manage was not possible and calling me a liar for saying that it was) and have rarely or never consulted residents. Elections for Chair had to be dragged out of the committee in January this year and those residents who did so were subject to online bullying on the CBW app including being called ‘lazy, ‘stupid’ and ‘piranhas’. Even then the Chair elections were not conducted fairly, in my view. The so-called ‘collegiate relationship’ with Rendall and Rittner has proven to be an absurd and time wasting exercise which most of us knew it to be from the start.

It was particularly amusing to hear Mr Thompson wittering empty clichés borrowed from Rishi Sunak such as ‘your priorities are our priorities’. No they really are not. In order to find out residents’ priorities, you need to talk to them, to consult them, not to make decisions in a cabal and then tell people that is what they wanted.

With the current co-chairs I am not at all sure that we are seeing any meaningful change of direction. This means we all need to monitor and question what is happening on key policies or we may find that yet another year has gone by and not only are things no better, we are in fact much worse off in terms of service charge hikes and deteriorating service.

7. CBWRA notes from the AGM – a long way from a fair representation of the meeting

The notes are remarkable for what they omit and gloss over. They really do insult residents’ intelligence. There is no mention of the motions the I submitted (albeit they were not voted on they are still relevant as evidence of residents’ concerns).

The notes also make many claims which were not made at the meeting and which are meaningless. for example CBWRA state that

‘‘Fountains and ponds: Significant costs incurred in past. Recent work undertaken and RA have been clear that leaseholders do not wish to incur further costs”

But as I have documented, CBWRA have refused to listen to the results of the residents survey in 2021 or to consult with residents since then on this matter and have actually sent residents a document which suggests that CBWRA wishes to start a sinking fund of several hundred thousand pounds for NEW FOUNTAINS”.

The CBWRA notes also state that

”Right to Manage (RTM): Main goal is achieving Right to Manage (RTM). A lot of progress has been made in the last month. Two companies in particular have been identified as potential replacements for R&R – proposals will be shared shortly. The potential new companies to be nominated will be asked to manage the process of seeking engagement from leaseholders in order to ensure that the process runs smoothly and effectively’

There is no mention of the fact that until Q4 of last year, CBWRA committee, including the current co-chars were telling residents that Right to Manage was not possible and basically calling me a liar (and closing my CBW app account ) for saying that it was possible. No mention either that one of the companies shortlisted (Canonbury) is the one which I obtained the independent advice which confirmed that CBWRA were misinforming residents about Right to Manage. No mention of the three legal opinions which CBWRA said they were obtaining in Dec. 2022 about whether to apply for RTM for the whole development or block by block, though I think it is clear that (as I always said) only the former is possible .

The notes also claim that CBWRA are making good progress in ”value for money” and that they are ‘challenging electricity rates”. Well given that my service charge went up 49% this year I am afraid I would have to disagree that CBWRA are making good progress on controlling service charge costs. They are in fact making very poor decisions, on security guards, the fountains and CCTV, the £18,000 on ‘seasonal community events’ and all without resident consultation.

The AGM notes also refer to

”Sustainability: RA need more resident engagement on this issue but areas to explore include use of solar power for communal electricity. Reducing impact of printing for RA / Estate as a whole”.

But solar power/renewables was identified as something with resident support in SUMMER 2021 in the Annual residents’ survey (which I carried out in summer 2021 and which remains the only consultation ever carried out by CBWRA) and NOTHING has been done in response. What do CBWRA mean by ‘more resident engagement needed’? You cannot get resident engagement unless you consult residents and give them some confidence that you intend to then act on what they have told you. So this makes no sense at all and is just more obfuscating waffle, more fig leaves to hide the embarrassment of having done nothing and not having any idea what to do either.

In summary, dear CBWRA, thank you for the work that (some) of the committee are doing, but could I respectfully suggest that you please stop trying to blow smoke up the residents’ rear ends and start behaving like a normal democratic residents’ association, then we might actually get somewhere as a community of engaged residents. Even the CBWRA home page is not being straight with us – ‘a board of elected residents’?. No one on the committee is elected apart from the co-Chairs and there are many aspects of that which are questionable to say the least.