Chelsea Bridge Wharf Residents’ Newsletter Winter 2022
Right to Manage meetings confirm that CBWRA advice to residents about Right to Manage is incorrect
At Right to Manage meetings held in November and December, David Breare of Canonbury gave a short presentation followed by a question and answer session with residents. Canonbury’s clear and independent advice is that Right to Manage for the WHOLE DEVELOPMENT is the best option and is entirely achievable and that ‘block by block’ right to manage cannot work (as all the blocks are linked by the underground car park and so are not technically separate) and even if block by block RTM somehow succeeded, it would not make much difference as we would not get control of then external areas of the development (these would remain with the freeholder and their chosen agent, Rendall and Rittner). Canonbury also confirmed that the advice given by CBWRA in their May 2022 newsletter and elsewhere, that Right to Manage for the whole development is not possible because of the supreme court judgement of First Port v Settlers Court is wrong, and that judgement has no relevance to RTM at Chelsea Bridge Wharf. It also means that the claim by Mr Thompson/CBWRA that I had misled residents about Right to Mange being possible is entirely wrong.
Therefore it is would appear on the basis of this advice that CBWRA has misinformed residents about Right to Manage options (e.g. May 2022 newsletter). I have not stated or implied that there is any intention to mislead. . CBWRA now apparently support RTM and I understand CBWRA are obtaining legal advice on RTM options but it is hard to understand why this was not done two years ago and I think it is unlikely that the advice will differ from that which I have had from Canonbury and others. I am sceptical about CBWRA’s ability to take RTM forward and supporting the Berkeley Homes retender of the management contract means that RTM is stalled again, even before the Chair election results were announced in March 2023.
Chair of CBWRA refuses to give date or process for Chair elections
Elections for Chair should be held in January 2023 but it seems Mr Thompson/CBWRA are now refusing to commit to any date for elections simply saying they will be held ‘sometime in the first quarter of 2023’ which means anytime up to the end of March.
It was then stated that the election would be on April 12th at an AGM and it was claimed also that Berkeley Homes had insisted in this date (rather than January when the Chair elections were due). CBWRA have claimed that elections for chair and committee took place at the AGM in May 2022 when in fact no such elections happened
The ‘AGM’ in May 2022 3 had 24 (twenty four) attendees (from a population of about 2,000 living here, in 1,150 properties). The This AGM was therefore not quorate (valid).
The CBWRA committee claim they (and the Chair) were elected at this AGM but in fact no elections took place, no nominations were invited, not a single vote was cast. The Chair simply stated at the AGM that ‘the committee have resigned and been re-elected’. I have a recording and transcription of the meeting (available to any resident on request). The CBWRA committee claim to have lost their recording of the meeting. The CBWRA committee did not invite residents to this meeting, by letter to their homes, as was required in the constitution – it was simply mentioned in passing on the CBW app (and a large percentage of residents are still not on the app), hence low attendance.
The current Chair of the CBWRA was in fact elected for one year from 29th Jan 2022
On 15.1.23 Mr Thompson then stated the chair elections will be in ‘February/March’).. So both the date and the process for elections remains totally unknown.
This would potentially have allowed the Chair several extra months beyond his elected term. This would be the second time this has happened – he tried to introduce a constitution in autumn 2021 which would also have allowed him to stay in office for several extra months beyond the elected term.
This was stopped when I resigned from the CBWRA committee in October 2021 and drew attention to this and many other instances of what I considered to be poor governance, lack of transparency, lack of consultation with residents, opposing/ failure to progress Right to Manage, strongly resisting a management audit of Rendall and Rittner and the fact that Mr Thompson demanded that I close down a petition against Rendall and Rittner (and absurdly banned the CBWRA committee from making petitions or complaints against Rendall and Rittner).
Residents who have asked for the elections dates and process to be clarified have been heavily criticised by Mr Thompson (they have been referred to as ‘lazy and cowardly’, and compared to ‘Pirahanas’ CBW app (16.1.23). One committee member told a resident (CBW app 13.1.23) that
”it would be idiotic to raise this questions { i.e. the elections for Chair} and waste everyone’s time unless you have proposals for anyone who can do it better”
All of this is massively disrespectful to residents and of course against the community guidelines for use of the CBW app which Mr Thompson and some committee members simply ignore. Many people would view this as online bullying.
Mr Thompson has also made many further extremely vile untrue and libellous comments about me on the CBW app (15.1.23) and I will have more to say about that at a later time. I will just say that it is cowardly for the Chair to close the CBW app account of the only other person likely to stand for Chair, to libel them on a regular basis on a platform where they cannot respond, and this also makes fair elections impossible.
**election update** on 31.1.23 CBWRA , following pressure from residents , published the supposed procedure for elections for Chair. This procedure is arbitrary in excluding all non-leaseholders from voting, in adopting a ‘one vote per property’ policy. The process does not seem to be consistent with the CBWRA constitution (which itself has never been adopted by residents at a valid AGM). Candidates are given two weeks’ notice to prepare a video (3 minute limit) a 300 word ‘official statement’ (whatever that means) and up to two sides of ‘further information’ (do they mean a manifesto? ). Elections were held and concluded on March 6th 2023. Read my account of the 2023 Chair elections.
CBWRA ASK RENDALL AND RITTNER TO PROVIDE TWO SECURITY GUARDS FOR TEN WEEKS AT A COST OF £29,544 – NO RESIDENT CONSULTATION AS EVER
Many residents were astonished to learn that the Chelsea Bridge Wharf Residents’ Association (CBWRA) had asked Rendall and Rittner to commission 2 security guards for a 10 week period at an estimated cost of £29,544 (Rendall and Rittner update 21.11.22) and furthermore that the security guard company recommended by CBWRA appears to have serious financial problems.
CBWRA initially claimed that was supposedly a result of an unspecified number of residents expressing unspecified ‘concerns’ and the reporting of unspecified ‘incidents’. The 10 week period is a ‘trial’ and CBWRA have stated it will not continue past 10 weeks without consultation and a vote by leaseholders. However, CBWRA do not have a good record on consulting with residents (in fact there have been zero consultations since the reactivation of CBWRA in January 2021, excepting the Annual Residents’ Survey carried out by the author of this blog). Furthermore consultations usually happen BEFORE decisions are made not after spending nearly £30,000 of residents’ cash on a scheme (which if continued over a year) would have an annual cost of £153,628.
Decisions which are made without consultation are often bad decisions, as we saw in CBWRA’s decision to pursue the retendering of the management contract (which predictably failed, at a cost of up to £15,000 to residents) rather than pursuing Right to Manage and their suggestion that Rendall and Rittner could make a £700 ‘cash call’ on residents (despite their being no provision in the lease for any such demand).
Although there has been one horrendous incident recently involving an assault on a resident in the carpark, these incidents are mercifully extremely rare and we have the hard data on that already in the crime questions in the annual residents’ survey 2021. In the incident referred to, a security guard was present but did not apparently make any meaningful difference to the situation. It is understandable that some people may feel concerned about their safety but spending the best part of £30K for ten weeks of security guard patrols is not going to make people any safer. A much better option would be to provide much better detailed advice on personal safety and improving CCTV and lighting.
According to Rendall and Rittner, the security budget for 2022 is already overspent by 46% due to to ‘ad hoc requests and one off events’ whatever those may be, so to add this wholly uneecsraay cost, which will add little or nothing to security, shows a complete lack of financial responsibility and a lack of accountability at the heart of CBWRA.
Apparently CBWRA now claims (CBW app, 14.12.22) that this commissioning of security guards was initiated by Rendall and Rittner and CBWRA had no power to stop it. This seems in complete contradiction of earlier statements which implied that the hiring of the security guards was initiated by CBWRA and that CBWRA supported it. It also contradicts the claims made by CBWRA that being recognised as an official RA was somehow a major achievement which would give them a lot more influence/power.
In fact, Rendall and Rittner make it clear that it was CBWRA who requested the security guards. The extract below is from a Rendall and Rittner update on the CBW online platform (21.11.22)
”’The Chelsea Bridge Wharf Residents Association (“CBWRA”) have made a request to introduce two security guards for the following times until the end of January 2023:
• Monday to Thursday 6pm to 1am (7 hours)
• Friday 5pm to Monday 1am (56 hours)”
Furthermore it is not clear if any formal competitive tendering or due diligence has taken place. The firm which CBWRA recommended, Crownguard Security, seems to have financial problems (a charge on their property from NatWest bank) and very little capital (less than £6,000) so it seems unlikely that they will provide a high quality or reliable service.
It would also seem that CBWRA asked Rendall and Rittner to add the cost of the security guards to the 2023 budget (i.e. to continue the so called ‘trial’ throughout 2023 and probably beyond). Rendall and Rittner refused to do this without resident consultation. So the behaviour of Mr Thompson/CBWRA now puts residents in the absurd position of having to rely on the managing agent to protect us from wholly unwarranted expenditure from the residents’ association, which has no democratic mandate.
I note Mr Thompson has stated on the CBW app that the author of this blog ‘has a history of misleading residents’ – this is beyond ironic given the above and coming from the person who claimed that retendering the management contract would be a quicker and cheaper alternative to Right to Manage and also claimed that retendering the management contract was the same thing as Right to Manage (CBW app 17.1.22). We await in vain Mr Thompson’s apology for wasting £15,000 of residents’ money on the failed management contract retendering. It would also be good if Mr Thompson apologised to residents for claiming that the agreement with Fairhold Artemis required Rendall and Rittner to be one of the contractors allowed to bid if the management contract was retendered (it did not). An apology is also overdue from Mr Thompson for telling residents that ‘everything had been done’ to encourage attendance at the failed AGM in May (when in fact no invites to apartments had been sent out as required in the constitution) leading to just 24 people attending. CBWRA/Mr Thompson’s claim that Right to Manage for the whole of CBW is not possible because of the Supreme Court judgement of First Port v Settlers Court has been shown to be completely wrong, according to expert independent advice received by residents.
I have referred Mr Thompson’s comments regarding my alleged misleading of residents and his defamatory statements about me on 15th January 2023 to my solicitor.