Saturday, February 04, 2006
Meeting With Stephen McAvoy
Cedar Tenants Association has been working for some time to secure a meeting with the community housing manager of Queen's Cross Local Housing Organisation - the local branch of the GHA which manages Cedar. We had been looking to secure such a meeting since a consultation we took at a public meeting revealed that something tenants and residents in Cedar would like to see most was that they got a chance to put their concerns and questions to, and had them dealt with by the housing boss for the area.
On Thursday the 26th of January the association held this meeting and managed to extract a few commitments from the Queens Cross LHO boss:-
1) Exposed live electricity wiring (in many cases left unfixed, and often dangerously vandalised for years at a time) will now be fixed in the three tower blocks, as of Friday the 27th of January.
2) He will meet with us again whenever we like, at any point in the
future.
3) That washing machines will no longer be treated as "luxury items" (previously Queens Cross LHO stated that low water pressure issues in the tower blocks - the result of an antiquated water system, where tap water is drawn from rooftop water-storage tanks as opposed to from rising mains - were not a problem because it only affected washing machines and other domestic appliances, which were "luxury items" which therefore tenants should do without).
[No washing machine being manufactured today will run on the low water pressure in the flats in Cedar, and special filters which were formerly produced to deal with this problem are no longer available to buy. The reason for this is that every other city in Europe has already dealt with this water pressure problem and so there is no need outside of Glasgow for these filters to continue to be produced.]
4) That the association will be able, towards the end of February, to view the timetable and list of investments and repairs due to get underway in Cedar over the next year.
Mr McAvoy also promised the following, but outlined no specific proposals, and gave no firm timetable:-
1) That all of the flats will receive new kitchens and bathrooms this year.
2) That the lowrise flats (which have suffered from dampness due to longstanding, unmended, leaking roofs and cracks in the masonry) will be overclad and harled, pending planning permission.
3) That the lowrises will have new heating installed.
4) That badly-needed magnetic, security doors will finally be fitted to the closes of the lowrises.
5) That the ill-conceived and poorly fitted installation last year of new storage heaters to the tower blocks will be reviewed to see if proper thermostatic controls can be fitted.
6) That following the installation of new kitchens and bathrooms the six lifts at Cedar will be replaced. The current lifts are 24 years old and are subject to constant breakdowns.
We believe it marks a significant milestone that we were able to meet with Stephen McAvoy, and that he gave a commitment to meeting with us in future whenever we want. Previously he had refused all contact with us, and denied the existence of our tenants association. As a result of our campaigning we were able to get him to come to our area and meet with us, to discuss what WE, as tenants and residents in this area, believe should be happening here. Tenants in this area have had enough of being bullied, ignored and lied to, left to live in a community which has not received the investment needed to sustain it. Now we are getting active.
We hope to post an audio file of this meeting to this website in the next week so that people can hear what was said at the meeting. In the meantime over the next few days we will post extracts from some of the things Mr McAvoy said during the meeting that are of relevance to tenants in the area.
On Thursday the 26th of January the association held this meeting and managed to extract a few commitments from the Queens Cross LHO boss:-
1) Exposed live electricity wiring (in many cases left unfixed, and often dangerously vandalised for years at a time) will now be fixed in the three tower blocks, as of Friday the 27th of January.
2) He will meet with us again whenever we like, at any point in the
future.
3) That washing machines will no longer be treated as "luxury items" (previously Queens Cross LHO stated that low water pressure issues in the tower blocks - the result of an antiquated water system, where tap water is drawn from rooftop water-storage tanks as opposed to from rising mains - were not a problem because it only affected washing machines and other domestic appliances, which were "luxury items" which therefore tenants should do without).
[No washing machine being manufactured today will run on the low water pressure in the flats in Cedar, and special filters which were formerly produced to deal with this problem are no longer available to buy. The reason for this is that every other city in Europe has already dealt with this water pressure problem and so there is no need outside of Glasgow for these filters to continue to be produced.]
4) That the association will be able, towards the end of February, to view the timetable and list of investments and repairs due to get underway in Cedar over the next year.
Mr McAvoy also promised the following, but outlined no specific proposals, and gave no firm timetable:-
1) That all of the flats will receive new kitchens and bathrooms this year.
2) That the lowrise flats (which have suffered from dampness due to longstanding, unmended, leaking roofs and cracks in the masonry) will be overclad and harled, pending planning permission.
3) That the lowrises will have new heating installed.
4) That badly-needed magnetic, security doors will finally be fitted to the closes of the lowrises.
5) That the ill-conceived and poorly fitted installation last year of new storage heaters to the tower blocks will be reviewed to see if proper thermostatic controls can be fitted.
6) That following the installation of new kitchens and bathrooms the six lifts at Cedar will be replaced. The current lifts are 24 years old and are subject to constant breakdowns.
We believe it marks a significant milestone that we were able to meet with Stephen McAvoy, and that he gave a commitment to meeting with us in future whenever we want. Previously he had refused all contact with us, and denied the existence of our tenants association. As a result of our campaigning we were able to get him to come to our area and meet with us, to discuss what WE, as tenants and residents in this area, believe should be happening here. Tenants in this area have had enough of being bullied, ignored and lied to, left to live in a community which has not received the investment needed to sustain it. Now we are getting active.
We hope to post an audio file of this meeting to this website in the next week so that people can hear what was said at the meeting. In the meantime over the next few days we will post extracts from some of the things Mr McAvoy said during the meeting that are of relevance to tenants in the area.
