Find out more about SyTRA here!

We need more members, next meeting Tuesday 26th October

19.00 Sydenham Hill Estate Community Centre

Kindly supported by

Without their help, our community event would never have happened. thank you!

Anthony Gold have a report on their website too, click here to read it  

Central: Councillor Alex Feakes, MP Jim Dowd and Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham

The event on 4th September 2010 was a great success! The fun day was attended by over 200 residents who enjoyed lots of free entertainment all put on by SyTRA, with help from our many supporters.

Some of the activities on offer included:

A free raffle with prizes ranging from Trinkets/souveniers, T-shirts, vouchers for meals/pampering/movies, even an X-Box 360 with games and a wide screen 40" HD telly!

A free BBQ was provided by Cummin' Up, a local Caribbean caterer.
Football for the kids with Millwall FC: the Centre-Forward presented the trophy

Massages, face painting for the kids, tattoo painting, nail painting (what a lot of painting!)

Music and entertainment for the whole family, it proved popular and the resounding message from everyone was:

'do it again next year!'

Our MP Jim Dowd came, along with our Forest Hill Ward Councillor Alex Feakes and the Mayor of Lewisham Sir Steve Bullock. The press attended, and we had help from so many people SyTRA couldn't possibly list them all here.

London & Quadrant representatives showed a steady stream of residents round the show-home in Highgate House. I didn't know we had one but took a look myself and you can see it on the Fun Day DVD that is being produced. Every resident will have a free copy. The film will be screened at the SyTRA AGM on 26th October and copies circulated through the post to all residents.

SyTRA AGM: 26th October

What's this? Yet another free event laid on by SyTRA? What's going on?

Free dinner

Music and entertainment

Another fantastic raffle! Win: digital camera worth £200, new iPod Nano and many more prizes!

The AGM is also another great opportunity to meet your neighbours, find out what SyTRA has achieved over the last year (again: too many things to list here, come along to find out more), find out how much money SyTRA has saved the residents and elect new members.

The Residents of Sydenham Hill Estate can now see that being in a motivated group of residents can really make a difference to our quality of life and surroundings. This is your chance to get involved and have your say about life on the estate.

Our MPs and councillors do listen to us and they can help us fight our corner!

By coming to the AGM you can take part and help make a difference for everyone on the estate. Our Chairman and our Secretary are both stepping down in October, why not come and help us elect someone, or even put yourself forward! You might also win a great prize, and you will definitely have fun!

London & Quadrant
London & Quadrant take over the management of our estate on 11th October. They will be the new landlord, all responsibility previously 'provided' by Lewisham Homes (although not much responsibility had ever been exercised by them!) will now be shifted to L&Q.

This is great for everyone on the estate. You will see a marked improvement of services provided such as maintenance, cleanliness, service and tenants will be consulted on their kitchens, bathrooms and windows (if applicable). This forms the 'Decent Homes' promise, bringing living standards up to European constitution set levels. The Decent Homes project will take place over the course of two years. There are 1700 flats and houses to survey and improve, so don't expect to have a new kitchen installed on 11th October 2010! As with any 2 year project: someone has their bit done first, but someone also has to have theirs done last.

What else will happen? L&Q will undertake the '100 Day Promise' which will involve trimming trees, making 'safe' any works deemed a risk (walls falling over, railings coming off etc), making sure all essential amenities are in place (lighting, entry systems etc), cleaning the whole place up a bit: something Lewisham Homes seems to have left untouched since they took over in Jan 2009.

All the residents will notice a difference. You'll see people walking round in high visibility jackets doing cleaning and checking standards. In two years time, when Decent Homes is complete and final improvements to the communal areas can be finished, our homes will look fantastic! Take a look at the photos on the London & Quadrant page to see the kind of quality we can expect.

SyTRA: Impacting the estate for good

SyTRA continued work for our estate

You may or may not know that SyTRA has been lobbying tirelessly and has saved the residents £30,000 in service charges. This was given as a rebate to those not in receipt of housing benefit for the year 2008/9.

We managed to get some senior, accountable heads of department to look at the estate on the 15th June 2010.
The main focus of the meeting was three fold:

• To have Lewisham Homes give all paying residents back-dated refunds for service charges applied between 2009-2011. The meeting was also a forum to discuss the exorbitant rates charged by LH for services.
• The bring the poor standards of service to the attention of accountable and influential Lewisham Homes staff and to get reliable statements of intent from Lewisham Homes regarding the levels of service improving.
• To point out obvious and literally dangerous health and safety risks on the estate: Lights not coming on, pot holes, broken glazing, loose brickwork, blocked gutters etc. Also to demonstrate the poor standards of grounds maintenance.

I was unfortunately not able to make it, but I have access to all the details from Lewisham Homes, and some other pertinent information. Please be sure to check the Reports page for new updates on what we are all paying, as residents.

One of the outcomes of the meeting was a letter sent to Mr Adam Barratt (Lewisham Homes Director of Resources):

Dear Mr Barrett
MEETING WITH HEADS OF DEPARTMENT TODAY - 15 JULY 2010

We met today with various Senior Personnel of Lewisham Homes to discuss our on-going concerns about the management of the Sydenham Hill Estate and our request for a refund of Service Charges for 2009/2010 and 2010/2011.

I have attached for your information some of the points that were raised and also our version of what we are paying for the different categories of Charges as we have NOT been able to obtain any figures from Lewisham Homes despite this request in April 2010.

The conclusion of the meeting is that Nick Spenceley is going to get back to us within 14 days i.e. by 29 June 2010 with definite outcomes in terms of the points raised. In addition there will be extra work done this afternoon and on Monday to sort out as much of the concerns as possible.

We thank you for arranging this meeting for us and hope that we don't have to do as much follow-up as we have been doing to date.

We also hope that these issues can be satisfactorily resolved or else we have no choice but to escalate this matter upwards and externally.

As an aside; Lewisham Homes has to develop a VERIFIABLE Programme of Supervision and Inspection of Services that includes all your Housing Stock per week/month etc and a system that records what for instance caretakers are actually doing daily. Something along the lines of what you see when you go to public toilets in shopping centres or department stores. For e.g. - last cleaned by, at time, inspected by, time..., if not satisfactory call...

Kind regards,
 SyTRA

Lights

Silbury House residents may have noticed the lights being fixed, then being broken again, then fixed again... currently they are partially fixed, Lewisham Homes inform me they are sending engineers to fix it.

Are there issues affecting you or your block, things that should be reported? I have a direct line to the technical repairs team so email me (with detail, location and photos if possible) and I'll report it for you.

silburyhouse@live.co.uk

Thanks
Matt

Some recent work done by Lewisham Homes!

Okay, Lewisham Homes have got a bit of a bad rep around here. But, they have recently been making some decent improvements to our estate! They have not gone unnoticed...

What the railings looked like before:

New railings

Where have the tyres gone?

Well done! It just goes to show that if you persevere you can make a difference!

My visit to Lewisham Park estate - what's the future for Sydenham Hill?

Lewisham Park Estate

On a glorious sunny day and with Steve Couzens (Operations Development Officer for Lewisham Council) as my guide I had a nose at the future of our estate, and was duly impressed!


Photos can be seen on the L&Q page, but to summarise my findings in one paragraph:
Everything, from the windows, doors, painting, landscaping, parking and generally well groomed foliage was as perfect as you could possibly expect to see in an ex-council estate. L&Q had surely done a brilliant job on rejuvenating this estate, and the future for our estate looks welcomingly similar.

Take a look at the photos or take a bus down to the estate (right opposite Lewisham Hospital) to make your own judgement!

Estate map

click picture

Please go to News! for the latest goings-on.

Leaseholder Special Interest meeting: 20th May 2010

I managed to attend the first hour of the meeting, held at the Civic Suite in Catford, missing the last part relating to help for leaseholders in paying their major works bills.

The only Lewisham Homes official present was Sandy Canham, who took a bit of a roasting from the attendees over costs of services being unreasonable, also that numerous paragraphs were left off the minutes of the previous meeting: especially those of particular embarrassment to Lewisham Homes.

It was noted that the minutes of the meeting held on 20th May, when available, will be complete.

The general feeling in the room was one of frustration and disbelief. The residents felt that they did not have the forum with this meeting to actually bring their concerns to Lewisham Homes. The agenda is rigged and all the issues, specifically relating to costs and standards of services repeatedly raised, are either left off the minutes or not remedied by Lewisham Homes at all.

As soon as the minutes are made available (keep your eye on http://crossfieldsleaseholders.blogspot.com/ for more information on this).

Matt

Some Improvements

Some progress has been made, the communal lights are almost fixed, the grass is getting cut and the burst water pipe has been fixed. Lots of pot holes remain though, mostly due to prolonged water damage from the leak.
We compiled a big list of gripes (see Reports) for Lewisham Homes, so condition of the estate is still lacking. It is nice to be able to see again, with the lights fixed at Silbury House. Cleaning is still not up to standard however.

Lewisham Homes are slowing down with their involvement, as L&Q get ready for the stock transfer and the 100 days programme set to start in about October. A Lewisham Homes official expressed concern to me that L&Q wouldn't have enough money to carry through their plans for our block: let's hope the concern is misplaced, and we'll all be living in a nicer area come a couple years from now.
Word from L&Q is that they are 100% committed to providing the works detailed in the offer document and are good for their investment. It's going to happen.

One of the bigger problems, rather than investment and improvements, is the (small) minority of residents who treat the place and others with no respect: dumping, grafitiing, trashing and generally causing grief for decent people. This is much trickier to remedy! But at SyTRA (and L&Q) we are thinking of ways to involve people in community spirit again. Peggy (SyTRA Secretary) has done a great job of putting people together to get our ideas moving.
Sydenham Hill Estate could be a really nice place to call home if we all had a bit more respect for each other.
Anyway that's it for now. If you wish to have an updated report or other information, or you would like to report something of relevance, please email me at

silburyhouse@live.co.uk

Thanks to A Slattery and Matt Gill from Lewisham Homes for their help.

More photos

Photos of our block

Leasehold Services

Background:
Sydenham Hill Estate looks like a real 'problem estate', which is a shame because it's a lovely place to live: Right on the edge of Dulwich Woods it's leafy, green and quiet and the residents are (mostly) considerate and pleasant.
After buying a flat there I soon discovered the reason it looked the way it did. I got involved with Leasehold Services as soon as I moved in (2005) to enquire about the seemingly obvious defects to the estate, all of which 'should' be repaired, replaced and/or cleaned within the leasehold contract. The one I'm paying for, the one that states: I pay, they do what they promise.

Well as you can probably guess, that's not quite how it works. I've been writing to my leasehold officer (the same one) since 2005 and none of my complaints or reportings have been actioned. Not one. I hasten to add that the list of complaints is long and tedious, so won't go into details here (see future posts), but you'd think they might do something with the money we've all been paying?
It's not cheap after-all. In 2005/6 my actual charges were £448.89. This year they are estimated at £747.36: that's bearing in mind that Lewisham Homes will lose the estate to L&Q by October 2010! It was £882.90 last year (actual).
It's a big rise since 2005, it's doubled, and I can tell you there is no difference to the level of service we receive (picking up crisp packets and, well, that's about it really). And these figures don't take Major Works into account either; another 'grey area' in services provided (see future posts).

Why, oh why do our complaints and critisisms go unheard? I've been told it's not all Lewisham Homes fault, that it's been a long term of neglect by a whole host of management agencies(Dunlop Harwards, Pinnacle, Lewisham Council and Lewisham Homes etc.), but why should this make a difference if we've always been talking to the same 'physical person', a person who has always been very well informed of every instance of neglect reported by us.

It seems it doesn't matter how many letters we write, or complaints we make, the bottom line is there is no accountability for anything. Surely the Leasehold Team should be accountable? Or someone? PLEASE? (not that's it's their contractual obligation of anything...)

Let's hope L&Q can make a better job of it, let's hope they will make a difference. Let's hope our leaseholder services team will action the complaints we make. After 6 years of waiting, I can say I'm dubious, yet allowing myself a little hope...

First post!

Dear All
This blog is for the residents of Sydenham Hill Estate and surrounding area, or anyone interested in the services delivered by our management agency: Lewisham Homes.

Our estate is due to be part of a stock transfer to London & Quadrant by the end of 2010.
I've been a resident on the estate since 2005, and have had many dealings with the numerous management agencies tasked with providing services. Prior to Lewisham Homes we've had Pinnacle, Dunlop Haywards and Lewisham Council (to the best of my knowledge).

This blog does not officially represent the Sydenham Hill Tenants & Residents Association (SyTRA), but issues raised at their meetings and other focus groups may be published where appropriate.
Thanks for looking

Matt at Silbury House