2019-04-04

Estate Inspection Gilbeys Yard Estate

Thursday 4th April 2019, 15:00

Those present at inspection

Beverley Castle - Housing Officer One Housing Group Ltd

Mark Neal - OHG tenant and Gilbeys Yard Tenants & Residents Association - Repairs, Maintenance & Issues Representative

Karim Ullah - OHG Tenant and Gilbeys Yard Tenants & Residents Association - Chair

Brought over from previous inspections >

Abandoned eurobin, fridge & mattress greet visitors to Gilbeys Yard instead of proud signage

Left in the middle of Gilbeys Yard for months, reported repeatedly, what message does this send to visitors to our yard? Does it say "that we care about our environment" and so should they?

3 April 2019

26 March 2019

4 January 2019

First thing you see entering Gilbeys Yard

1 February 2018

27 January 2018

2 March 2017

Have been reporting this abandoned eurobin for years. It is as if we do not have caretakers or estate services. We reported it to the Council to make sure it wasn't their responsibility, and it isn't. One Housing Group is the landowner of the whole of Gilbeys Yard and their estate services do not maintaining One Housing service standards here, and let the environment suffer and degenerate, when they have an obligation as all OHG staff have to report what they see on OHG property regardless of whether they are responsible for it. We continue to pay an ever increasing service charge for ever decreasing environmental standards imposed by careless estate services.

Some effort to finally remove playground graffiti after reporting for many months

This should be have been reported by caretakers and actioned without the need for customer intervention at all, they need to raise their standards

but this was left out?

There is a One Housing policy to remove graffiti within a specified time, please start honouring this policy

The estate is littered with these ugly adhesive blobs from parking contractor's signage

Another thing ignored by caretakers who don't take very good care

Reported many many times on estate inspections, where's our service response?

An easy improvement if services were engaged with us

CPM uniformed parking wardens have stopped visible patrols again, please have them return

Shopping Trolleys

I once collected and returned 10 shopping trolleys from around Gilbeys Yard that I had been seeing left for months, when we have "caretakers" on site multiple times a week

Shopping trolleys

Obviously some disabled use them and cant return them and should be supported in returning them by their carers or our estate caretakers

are not cleared by estate services

Some of these trolleys are left around by anti social residents but that should not stop estate services from dealing with these anti social minorities for the service charge paying majority

Dangerous playground

Trip hazard created due to poorly finished ground work

Paving

this

derelict

site

than our home

One Housing "pride of ownership" signage faded away along with basic estate services

No pride of ownership shown for Gilbeys Yard, like an estate that time forgot

Housing association sign worn completely blank

Our current Housing Officer, Beverley Castle has worked very hard to get us basic signage, which we are eager to have installed now. It should not have been allowed to deteriorate to this extent and it is estate services supervision that should have noticed and reported this via caretakers.

Cobbles sunken by unregulated heavy vehicles through yard to businesses on the east side

This heavy vehicle traffic at all hours ruins our living environment as well as our cobbles, which we don't seem to be able to afford to repair and maintain despite huge increases in service charges over the past 7 years. Water pools and freezes in the winter, making hazardous neglected cobbles even more dangerous. This has been reported and an "action plan" created in 2017 which failed to remedy the situation, due to mismanagement of the work by One Direct. We observed, documented and reported it in disbelief.

A One Direct cowboy contractor took our money and pretended to do the work in 2017

You cannot tell that any work was done. We tried to raise the alarm about it not being done properly, but yet another One Housing supervisor dismissed us and deprived us of basic service. Documentation available.

Loose bricks can be weaponised, please keep the yard clear

Caretakers should observe these things and routinely report them and have them cleared

This space needs to be utilised as has been proposed to stop it being abused

Housing Officer Nnadozie proposed this area be made into a bulk rubbish lock up back in 2017 which we agreed with and are disappointed that it hasn't been progressed. Estate Services are phenomenally lethargic and this has run down our estates.

New for this inspection >

Safety Lighting on the east side of the yard was disabled by One Direct operatives 2 weeks ago for safety concerns ironically...

Due to them discovering a dangerous underground circuit in their routine check on 25 March 2019. This problem is from poor historic OHG repair work done after years of reported circuit instability here and many outages, so it is upsetting for it to be turned off now because of bad historic repair work.

Lighting

disconnected

information

for safety

provided

Now we are in darkness

Please provide a detailed report on this

due to poor previous OHG repair work

and secure this area urgently with fully reinstated lighting

This is very important safety lighting

It must be maintained as a priority, and any outage responded to as an emergency repair. We have drug users and gangs to protect ourselves from.

All One Housing staff have a duty to report any problems seen when visiting estates.

Estate inspections, including the inspection of playground equipment, will usually take place monthly on all estates and will be conducted by a Housing Officer, Homeownership Advisor or the Estates Services Officer where applicable, a resident, and a caretaking supervisor where available.

Residents will be notified of estate inspections in good time and encouraged to take part. Residents will provided with accessible, relevant and timely information about the progress of communal repairs.

Estate inspections will be graded, recorded and monitored as part of One Housing’s key performance indicators.

ABOUT ONE DIRECT

https://www.onehousing.co.uk/for-you/repairs-and-maintenance/about-one-direct

"One Direct is our in-house repairs and maintenance service. Our aim is to provide you with a responsive, value for money service to make sure that you live in a safe, comfortable and secure environment."

"One Direct will manage and carry out repairs to all of our properties in London. We created our own in-house team to improve value for money and improve quality with a 'right first time' approach compared to using external contractors as we have in the past."

The following are the repairs service standards as written on One Housing website:

In line with One Housing service standards One Direct will:

Provide a 24 hour, seven days a week service to report emergency repairs.
Make emergency repairs within 24 hours.
Complete urgent repairs within five working days.
Complete routine repairs within 20 working days.