Update following the Open Tenants' Meeting

Sol Unsdorfer (S.24 Manager) held an open meeting with Canary Riverside leaseholders by Zoom on Tuesday 9th March 2021. Lessees had the opportunity to put questions to Mr Unsdorfer and the Parkgate Aspen (PA) team (Steven Unsdorfer, Jaime Rodas and Ronnie McCarthy), and also to the Calford Seaden team working on the cladding application to the Building Safety Fund (BSF) and Michael Hood of Clever Energy.

The meeting was well attended and covered topics including cladding, fibre broadband, reserves/major works, lift maintenance and use of the tennis court. A brief summary can be found below.

Cladding: Steven Unsdorfer confirmed that Hanover House had been confirmed as eligible for the BSF, following a successful appeal. Work on the final project costing was on-going, with measured surveys of the externals and final drawings currently being undertaken to enable detailed costings to be submitted to the BSF. Once that has been submitted he will be able to have clarity as to the extent of BSF funding and the commencement date for the works.

He hoped that the works would be underway in the next 3-4 months and anticipated that they would take approximately one year. He confirmed that an EWS1 certificate could only be issued once all of the works had been completed (ie, all buildings remediated).

Sol Unsdorfer noted that the cladding reserve raised through the 2020/21 service charge demand had been used to enable PA to push ahead with the BSF application and as a consequence we were at an advanced stage compared to many other buildings. He added that he would review the cladding reserve as the works progressed and indicated that if it was no longer required (ie, if the BSF funds covered the full cost of the remediation works) it could be re-allocated to fund other priority residential major works.

Major works/reserves: Sol Unsdorfer advised that Calford Seaden had undertaken work to establish a 10-year planned preventative maintenance/major works plan and this was being finalised. There was a potential requirement for a works programme costing £4.6million over the next five years - the example was given that the roofs of all residential buildings had returned 'saturated core samples’ and would need to be a major priority for capital expenditure. He added that he was seeking to ‘flatten the expenditure curve’ where possible. Lessees raised the concern that the common areas were in need of redecoration and re-carpeting throughout the residential buildings.

2021/22 Budget: Sol Unsdorfer advised that he was finalising the 2021/22 service charge budget and that he did not as yet have from CREM details of the insurance premiums payable from 1st April. He noted that if the lease allowed the insurance premium might be left off the 1st April demands and invoiced separately, rather than speculating as to the expected uplift (as happened in 2020/21, resulting in a credit being applied in the 1st October demands).

Fire safety: Jaime Rodas confirmed that the London Fire Brigade had carried out a full inspection in November 2020, and the small number of defects identified were addressed by PA within a month. It was agreed that fire extinguishers located in residential lobbies would remain in situ until cladding remediation works were completed and then would be reviewed.

Hyperoptic broadband: Sol Unsdorfer confirmed Hyperoptic had completed their survey and asked CREM’s representative on the call to update lessees in respect of the progress with the necessary wayleave agreement. James Arter responded on behalf of CREM that CREM had agreed the wayleave terms with Hyperoptic, and this should pave the way for Hyperoptic to install fibre (in addition to the existing Openreach ultrafast FTTP service).

Lift maintenance: concerns were raised at the frequency of lift breakdowns, particularly in Belgrave Court. Sol Unsdorfer explained that a lengthy* contract had been agreed with OTIS from 1st January 2000 and this limited PA’s options as it would not be cost-effective to break the contract at this point. Jaime Rodas explained the improved management and monitoring of OTIS call-outs that had been implemented by PA. *the contract is for 30 years.

Tennis court: In response to a request as to how residents can book to use the tennis court a link was provided to a booking service that had been set up in agreement with Virgin Acive. Residents can access the link here. NB only Canary Riverside residents can use the court while the health club remains closed due to lockdown restrictions.