CBWRA announce results of fountains ‘consultation’ as not showing support for new pumps and then immediately contradict themselves

CBWRA announced the results of the ‘fountains consultation’ on 5th September 2023. They state:

”A total of 253 leaseholders completed the survey. Of these:

130 voted in favour of submersible pumps
18 voted to turn the fountains back on without changing the pumps
105 voted to leave the fountains out of operation until such a time as they could be replaced.”

very bizarrely CBWRA decided not to give percentages for the results so I am happy to help them out

130 (51.4%) voted in favour of submersible pumps
18 (7.1%) voted to turn the fountains back on without changing the pumps
105 (41.5%) voted to leave the fountains out of operation until such a time as they could be replaced.”

So, In total 48.6% voted against new pumps and 51.4% voted for new pumps

In an email to Berkeley Homes, following the consultation results, CBWRA state that they are not supporting the installation of pumps (which BH clearly want) because of lack of resident support:

”Given the high number of leaseholders who preferred to leave the fountains completely out of operation rather than turn them back on, we would ask that you continue to work with the fountain sub-committee to expedite progress on exploring options for replacing the fountains with either modern fountains, planters or a combination of planters/fountains so that we can address this deep-rooted concern amongst leaseholders. We understand that a vote on alternate options may require more leaseholders to take part in a survey/vote before you would consider the result representative for what would be a big change to the piazza area. However, we are committed to continuing to build engagement and reaching out to overseas/non-resident landlords who are currently underrepresented in the RA, which reduces the level of participation we are currently able to secure.” (email from CBWRA to BH, 5.9.23)

Then, less than 24 hours later CBWRA totally reverse their position but do not have the honesty to admit that the have done that. They pretend instead that their previous email was a misunderstanding or ‘communications fail”:

”Dear Leaseholder,

We’re writing again because our last email about the survey results seems to have been a communication fail and open to misinterpretation. The results of the survey showed a preference for the installation of submersible pumps, and so we have told Berkeley Homes that the RA is supporting the installation of the pumps.

Thank you.
Larisa and Louis” (email from CBWRA to residents 6.9.23)

All references to planting some of the fountains (which is what many residents want) , and which was not even offered in the consultations, are gone and the results are suddenly ”reinterpreted” to mean that residents support new pumps!

Larisa Villar Hauser and Louis Sebastian Kendall (who signed the above emails) are telling BH that residents support new pumps even though the margin in favour, in a very biased consultation was just 7 votes (2.8%) and despite the fact that 78% of leaseholders did not vote at all. Furthermore they want us to believe that this was their original position and that they have not done a ‘reverse ferret’ it was just a misunderstanding (‘communications fail’). So once again CBWRA show a complete lack of integrity and insult residents’ intelligence. They do rather make my case for me in terms of this being an extremely biased consultation and that there always was a clear agenda to install new pumps/keep the fountains.

Are the current committee suitable people to run a residents’ association let alone to take over the Right to Manage? Is that is all we can expect going forward? No consultation/dodgy consultations? If so then Right to Manage will be pointless. This is not a ‘communications fail’ it is an integrity fail in my humble opinion.