Tower Hamlets Leaseholder's Association

The audit is now starting on the 15th March 2010. If you have a statement to make to the auditor, please use the contact form on the website to contact the THLA and the auditor

Well, we already pay the Met police precept in our council tax (for police that we never really see), and for the borough ASB team (which takes telephone calls and presumably logs them) in the rest of our council tax.

Now, Tower Hamlet Homes would like us to pay for 'their' ASB team which has 'hit the ground running' (maybe they ran off into a neighbouring borough?) according to a gassy spin-statement by the highly paid (£100K odd straight into our administration charges) Gavin Canfield.

Meanwhile (and this is a pretty good estate) there are addicts, urine and food on the stairs contunually in one of our blocks. Not worth phoning anyone, except maybe 'phone a friend' because no-one, I repeat no-one in the borough will deal with it.

The borough has a duty of care towards its residents and is already paid to fail at this. There all attempts to build up and charge for a private ASB force in the Canfield zero-star empire need to be challenged, if necessary in the LVT.

Our caretaker now has a petrol leaf blower to blow the leaves around (this in a stiff wind) help with global warming/pollution/noise pollution and waste time, money and fuel.

Another idiotic activity 'making a difference' yes, if you mean making bad things worse.

Well, if you get one from here, about £160 for an outside, large version.

If you are Tower Hamlets homes, then the cost, for a simple board is £599, we recently saw one, hanging around in a THH corridor.

But, who cares, we can always add a few vague items to the actuals later, can't we guys? This kind of extravagant procurement is unfortunately true for capital major works items too, that's why the cost is obscured in 'partnership agreements', very unfavourable for both taxpayer and leaseholder.

Can you say that lovely American phrase sweetheart deal?

I met a neighbour as I was starting to run, this morning. Here's what she said:

I've got half a dozen leaflets from THH, some of them are pretty much the same. I don't read any of them because all they do is say how good they are. And half the time, including weekends there's a subcontractor's van hanging around (note: this is EPS) doing I-don't know-what, but we'll be paying for it.

Both of these are the visible part of the enormous waste and intellectual dishonesty in the interior of THH. From the front line, it's not showing any improvement over the council, just finding new ingenious ways of wasting our money (red uniforms, new logo, leaflets, subcontracting a-go-go, wasted energy, overpaid gardeners, overpriced-bad-quality 'partners' you name it).

Here's someone in the House of Commons that is actually listening and making progress.

In spite of 'focus groups', 'engagement officers', 'Repair letters 1,2,3,15,27 etc etc.', Open Door', 'Leaseholder news' and all the other pieces of spin designed to try and convince the Audit Commission that they 'engage', THH aren't listening.

According to them, they are focusing on (according to them) 'Relentless Collection', That is wasting money or (in the case of energy) wasting money and making up figures and then bullying their leaseholders, who include the elderly, those of limited means and the vulnerable.

It doesn't enter into their small heads that, via productivity, efficiency, transparency, modern techniques and general competence (look up that word, guys) they could cut these bills by about half.

To show you that we're equal-opportunity reporters, here's a story about East End Homes:

We had lovely polished concrete floors all through the block. EEH, without consultation, poured a strong chemical over them and after many man hours of scrubbing managed to take off 95% of the surface of the stairs and landings leaving an unsightly, impractical mess.

We put in a formal complaint and they eventually admitted in writing that they had made a mistake and that the stairs were damaged and have agreed that they would rectify it. They have now found that it will cost about £8000 to put right and have suddenly changed their mind and are coming up with ridiculous excuses as to why they shouldn't reinstate the situation.

Please send any stories and incidents via the contact form and we'll publish a selection of them. If, by chance, you're happy with something, send that too! Unlike East End Lies, we actually believe in reality and balance.

Well, on our estate, the price of a parking gate key has risen from £12 to £45, with no explanation or justification.

It's difficult to say that THH is a non-profit, obviously, various people and contractors are doing pretty well out of it. The only people that aren't are the leaseholders who are financing most of this excess...