Dodgy Elections for Directors of the CBW Right to Manage Company but – please use your vote! Do not choose ‘discretionary’ option. 

Voting has opened in the elections for directors of the Chelsea Bridge Wharf Right to Manage Company. The role of the directors is (or should be) to supervise and direct the managing agent (Urang) in the interests of all leaseholders and to take on certain other responsibilities around the governance of the development. 
The elections are in theory being organised by the managing agent (Urang) but in my view the reality is that the current unelected directors are calling all the shots. Voting will be on the ‘LUMI’ platform.

You can find my candidate statement/my reasons for standing here 

If elected, the key policies I will pursue are:
i) Leaseholders will be able to see the contract with Urang (currently kept secret).
ii) There will be annual elections for directors of the RTM company.
iii) There will be quarterly (hybrid) meetings between Urang, leaseholders, & the
RTM company (Urang currently only offer two).
iv) Leaseholders will be able to see a monthly account of the weekly meetings
between RTM directors and Urang.
v) Performance information will be published quarterly.
vi) A serious and objective consultation on the future of the pond and fountains.
vii) Urang will have a target to reduce the service charge by 10% (whilst recognising
that this cannot be guaranteed).

In order to vote, you need to be:

a) a leaseholder at Chelsea Bridge Wharf, and
b) a member of the Right to Manage Company.If you are an RTM member you should be getting information about the candidates and how to vote, today (27th Oct).If you are not already a member of the RTM company you can join, for free by filling in this simple form and returning to Urang (paige.anderson@urang.co.uk). if you are unsure if you are a member of the RTM company and / or have not received information about voting by the end of 28th October, I suggest you contact Urang and check. 

1. Dodgy voting protocol – again

I strongly recommend NOT to choose the ‘DISCRETIONARY’ option in voting which basically means you are allowing Louis Kendall and Stephen Thompson and the other unelected directors to use your vote to potentially vote for themselves and against any candidates whom they do not like. 

No ‘Abstain’ option is offered on the motions for each candidate. So, if RTM members do not wish to vote for a candidate, and do not wish to appoint a proxy, they have to give their vote to the Chair. However, we did not know who the Chair was until a few days ago and the Chair is not named on the LUMI platform, nor is it made clear that the Chair is in fact one of candidates in the election . Therefore, it is clear that the voting process has been set up in a way which means the Chair has control of a significant pile of ‘discretionary’ votes which they can use to support their preferred candidates (including themselves) and to vote against those they are desperate to keep out. LUMI are unable to explain why they did not offer an ‘ABSTAIN’ option and whether this was their decision or an instruction from the unelected CBW RTM directors.

2. Trying to ‘low key’ the election
In Urang’s newsletter on Friday only a few lines are given to forthcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM) and the election for directors. It is almost the last item in the newsletter and the word elections not even mentioned. There has been little or no discussion about the elections on the CBW app and post from leaseholders asking questions about the unfairness of the election process have apparently been removed without explanation.

3. No meeting or discussion with candidates – hiding from debate, hiding from the electorate
There is no meeting planned  where leaseholders can ask potential candidates questions or have a debate of any kind. There is no discussion of the candidates or issues on the CBW app.  It’s almost as if they don’t want leaseholders to think or talk about the elections which they and the current unelected directors have tried to hide from for so long. I wonder why?

4. Month long voting window For reasons which are not at all clear, voting will be open for four weeks. This is very odd indeed, given that every election is conducted on a single day. A week would have been more than enough. I believe the reason for this extraordinary long voting window is simply to prevent any ‘campaign period’ where debate or discussion could take place. This underlines the desperation of the existing directors of the RTM company and Urang to avoid scrutiny by leaseholders.

5. Initial plans to avoid voting altogether were abandoned I have indisputable evidence that as recently as late August this year, at least one of the current elected directors was planning to avoid any vote at all in the elections for RTM directors. The idea was that anyone who came forward would automatically become a director (although I imagine they would have found some excuse to exclude me). This would mean that all the existing directors could stay in place without having to face the ballot box. I am not sure why this was abandoned but presumably they realised this would be a bit obvious as ballot box avoidance and they might struggle to find legitimate excuses to exclude all those who expressed an interests in becoming a director following the meeting on 15th September (these expressions of interest were not acknowledged or replied to by Urang). i.e. people came forward who were not all necessarily friends of the existing directors and so they had to abandon the ‘anyone can be a director, no voting needed’ idea.

6. Annual General Meeting to be entirely online so that current unelected directors can have complete control
Please note the date/time for AGM  24th Nov, at 6.30PM. It will be entirely online (not hybrid) which underlines the terror that Urang and the current directors have of anything resembling a real discussion. so much easier to silence leaseholders when you can literally mute them.

7. Current directors have been dragged kicking and screaming to any elections at all.
The fact that there are any elections at all result from a long campaign and a petition by myself and others and forcing the discussion onto the agenda via this blog and social media and the probability of national media coverage regarding the ‘situation’ at Chelsea Bridge Wharf.

8. Critics of the current directors banned from the CBW app Elections also follows Leasehold Knowledge Partnership ”recommending” that elections be held (and that followed a discussion that I had with LKP about their very one sided and selective account of events and the story of the RTM process at Chelsea Bridge Wharf  (see my comments at the  end of their article), the opposition to Right to Manage over several years from the current  directors (which only ended when I published independent advice showing their position was wrong), serious online and offline bullying over a long period, arbitrary closure of CBW app accounts, misinformation to residents by CBWRA on countless occasions and a culture of fear and the lack of elections, consultation and transparency from CBWRA/ the RTM company).

Less than a year ago, Louis Sebastian Kendall stated categorically there would be no elections for directors which was an absolutely outrageous position which would mean that leaseholders had no way to hold these people accountable regardless of their performance or behaviour.

One step forward, two steps back
So elections for directors of the RTM are welcome and a positive step – but unfortunately games are still being played with the electoral process and the current unelected directors are hiding from any sort of debate or discussion with leaseholders. This is a highly questionable electoral process, similar to those of the past for CBWRA Chair (2023 and 2024)  which have led to a complete loss of legitimacy for CBWRA, declining membership, disengaged and fearful residents and a very minimal bank balance.

Still it is progress and adds to a long list of things that I have had to campaign for and which are initially bitterly resisted by the current directors (e.g. Right to Manage) and then some time later come to pass anyway because they are in fact the sensible and inevitable way forward. 

The questions that matter
 I urge residents to ask questions of the existing unelected RTM Directors (and anyone else who wishes to become a director) about:

Why leaseholders cannot see the contract with Urang?
Why leaseholders have not been consulted on how service charges are spent but Garton-Jones have been (as Urang made clear at the meeting on 15th September) ?
Why are they pursuing a policy of ‘estate upgrades’ rather than focusing on controlling the service charge which is what most residents want?
Will they undertake to allow leaseholders to decide whether Urang’s contract is renewed in Spring 2026?
Will they undertake to remove directors who engage in bullying or alleged criminal behaviour?
Will they undertake to hold annual elections for directors?

I note that after the meeting between Urang and leaseholders on 15th September, where they were heavily criticised for the lack of consultation by me and others, they quickly rushed out two very badly designed surveys which seem primarily designed to produce PR for Urang. The latter survey had over 40 questions and no reminders have been sent. It is therefore likely to have a very low response rate, and there is no commitment to publishing the results or acting on the data from them.

It is also obviously the case that there cannot be fair elections while certain people are banned from the CBW app which in may case was done simply because I pointed out that Right to Manage was the way forward and that CBWRA were misinforming  residents in saying that it was not possible.  

To leaseholders I would say – please take part in the elections for Directors of the CBW Right to Manage Company and use your vote wisely. You may or may not get another chance to have your say. The RTM company has almost complete control over how your service charge money is spent, and the right to hire or fire the managing agent. Right to Manage will only make things better if leaseholders are able to choose people they can trust and who share their ideas about how CBW should be run, to be directors, and if leaseholders play a meaningful role in all big decisions.

Do feel free to get in touch if any questions: residents@chelseabridgewharf.org.uk 

Tired of censorship and bullying on the CBW app? Join our Facebook group – a place where freedom of speech is guaranteed and bullying is not tolerated https://www.facebook.com/groups/cbwcommunity

And please do not let Urang or the CBW RTM company or anyone stop you from expressing your view or asking questions. It is our community, our money, our development. 

Best Wishes

Mike O’Driscoll