Five months later – still no written process for CBW app account closures

In September 2023, with the support of residents, I passed a motion at the CBWRA SGM which required a written process to be provided regarding the closure of CBW app accounts. The aim of this was to prevent the arbitrary closure of residents’ CBW app accounts simply because they dare to question the ‘wisdom’ of the CBWRA committee or to point out that they are misinforming residents that Right to Manage was not possible or simply pointing out that some members of the CBWRA committee have a history of saying things to residents that are not true. More than five months later there has been no update on this from CBWRA committee and no sign of this written procedure. This means that CBW app accounts can still be closed in an arbitrary and subjective way, without any evidence regarding the reasons for account closure needing to be presented to the person whose account is closed, nor any chance given to them to respond or appeal. This is an utterly revolting form of censorship, in effect.

The CBWRA committee, none of whom are elected apart from the ‘Co-Chairs’ (who ‘won’ through a shamefully unfair election process worthy of any banana republic) are ,in my view, doing their best to supress discussion on the CBW app. Any documents or papers from CBWRA are circulated only by email (e.g. the new constitution, motions for the SGM) and not on the app. Anyone raising a major issue or anything even vaguely critical of the committee is shut down fairly quickly by a committee member or ‘friend of the committee’ and told they must email the query privately to the committee and/ or that they are being ‘negative’, ‘toxic’ etc. In short, in my view, online bullying has remained rampant on the CBW app so that most people are afraid to even start a discussion.

This is why I introduced the SGM motion preventing the arbitrary closure of CBW app accounts. which was successfully passed. My own account was closed in May 2022 and remains closed, mainly because I pointed out that the CBWRA committee were (at the time) misinforming residents by stating that Right to Manage was not possible and generally raising questions which the committee did not want to discuss. The committee apparently think they are entitled to operate in a criticism and scrutiny-free environment. This is not healthy and if it continues then we will not feel the benefit of Right to Manage even if it is achieved. If decisions continue to be made by 2 or 3 people in closed rooms, with only token resident consultation on how our money is spent then we will be no better off. That is why I put forward the motions at the SGM (which was passed) which mandates that there will be quarterly hybrid (i.e. in person and online) meetings with Urang (if RTM is successful and they take over) where all residents (not just leaseholders) will be welcome.

I note that the CBWRA committee did not see or approve the contract with Urang who were appointed to manage the RTM application and who will become the managing agent if the process is successful . Continuing the secretive and undemocratic culture of the last 2.5 years, the contract was apparently only seen by the ‘co chairs’ and a ‘solicitor’?. Is this the same legal genius who told residents for over 2 years that Right to Manage was not possible and accused those who said otherwise, of misleading residents? We should be told. The contract is not between CBWRA and Urang in fact but between Urang and the Chelsea Bridge Wharf Right to Manage Company, which was founded in 2012 in an earlier and abandoned attempt at Right to Manage and whose registered address is The Garton-Jones estate agents (3 Oswald Building). This company holds all CBWRA funds in bank accounts under the name of the RTM company. The directors of this company, which in effect runs the CBWRA, are not elected. It is clear that going forward, the CBWRA committee (which is not noted for its powers of independent thought or scrutiny in any case) can be bypassed on important decisions through the use of the RTM company.

I strongly encourage all residents to stand up for freedom of speech, for fair consultations and for the committee to be accountable to residents in fair elections. We need Right to Manage AND a normally functioning residents’ association – one without the other will not deliver the change we want.