The first AGM of the Chelsea Bridge Wharf RTM company took place today, 24th November, 2025, chaired by Louis Kendall. This is an AGM and elections that the current directors have been dragged… Continue reading
On 9th November, I made a complaint to Urang on a number of matters, and below is their reply of 21st November and my responses to that in red. In short, it is… Continue reading
Notes from Meeting of Chelsea Bridge Wharf Leaseholders and Urang on 15th September 2025 6.30-8pm at Pestana Hotel London SW11 Executive Summary Urang’s notes from the meeting on 15th September are highly selective… Continue reading
The Chelsea Bridge Wharf Residents Association announced today (28th Feb 2025) that they will hold elections for Directors of the Chelsea Bridge Wharf Right to Manage Company, which will take over running of… Continue reading
Many thanks to those who supported the motions I put forward for this meeting which focussed on freedom of speech on the CBW app, trying to ensure fair elections for the future and also trying to ensure that Right to Manage actually delivers increased power to residents not just to a handful of people on an unelected/unfairly elected committee. The meeting also included a vote on ‘ratification’ (i.e. not an election) of the committee and a new constitution. Two of the five motions I proposed were passed.
These motions (in plain language) were that:
That no residents CBW app account can be closed in an arbitrary manner without any due process (as was the case with the closure of my account in May 2022). The closure or threat of closure of CBW app accounts has carted a ‘chilling effect’ on the CBW app which means that residents are afraid to say what they think or to be critical of the CBWRA committee in any way.
That there will be quarterly meetings with the new managing agent (Urang) assuming that RTM foes ahead and they are appointed – the meetings will e hybrid (face to face with the option to attend online) and ALL residents will be welcome not just leaseholders.
vote AGAINST ratification of committee (because they are not consulting residents, the consultations they do carry out are biased/ leading and the proposed quarterly ‘forums’ are too infrequent and exclude non-leaseholders. Also there is not freedom of speech on the app, and the CBWRA committee misinformed residents about RTM and have not explained or apologised for that). Also that there should be ELECTIONS not ‘ratification’
· VOTE AGAINST the ratification of the constitution because we are only being given 10 days to see it before the meeting (it will only come around on 30 AUG)
· VOTE AGAINST CBWRA fees rise CBWRA have never given any meaningful justification for the 140% increase in fees which they carried out in Feb this year. They claimed it was partly for legal fees to do with RTM but they have also said Urang (the proposed new managing agent) are covering all fees or will recover them through the service charge.
I also encourage residents to consider withholding all payment to CBWRA until they adopt normal standards of governance in respect of fair elections, free speech and resident consultation. #NOSAYNOPAY
Sadly this is what we can expect going forward from the existing Chairs and committee – they have been explicit that they do not wish to consult with residents because there is ‘low engagement’. This is an astonishingly ignorant and self serving ‘take’ because they are causing ‘low engagement’ by failing to consult with residents, hold meetings with them etc. Personally I find it terrifying that if Right to Manage succeeds, this tiny group of unelected / unfairly elected people will have full control over millions of pounds of service charge money and will continue to make decisions which deeply effect our lives, without consulting residents. Nor will it be possible to vote them out given that the election for Chair are self evidently unfair and the committee are not elected at all.
*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
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.
Residents will not choose new agent – Berkeley Homes will be in charge of the process
Rendall and Rittner will be allowed to bid and may be reappointed
Right to Manage at the very least delayed by many months and may not happen at all (unless you vote for me!)
No resident consultation on this decision
It is clear that once again CBWRA/BH have at the very least kicked Right to Manage a long way down the road, and without any resident consultation, and the timing of this announcement suggests at the very least a disregard for the Chair election process.
Thanks to all who attended these meetings and to Canonbury Estate Management for providing expert advice. The standout points are
i) The advice given by Stephen Thompson/Roger Southam/Charlie Garton-Jones/CBWRA that Right to Manage for the whole development is not possible because of the supreme court judgement of First Port v Settlers Court is categorically WRONG. David Breare of Canonbury added that in his view, any competent advisor/consultant would come to the same conclusion (i.e. it’s not a grey area),
This confirms Canonbury’s written advice of June 2022 https://chelseabridgewharf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/canonbury-summary-advice-1.6.22-correspondence-1522672.pdf
Residents should recall that this judgement of First Port v Settler’s Court was (according to Mr Thompson) the reasons why Right to Manage was not pursued at the start of 2022 and why the management contract retendering was chosen (this failed in Sep. 2022, in my view wasting up to £15,000 of residents’ money).
ii) The current position of CBWRA (after 2 years of saying that Right to Manage is not possible) is that they will investigate RTM on a block by block basis. Canonbury were equally clear that this will not work because all blocks are linked by an underground car park, and therefore cannot be considered as separate for the purposes of RTM (they are not vertically separated).
