Tower Hamlets Leaseholder's Association

Tower Hamlets Leaseholders Association exists to defend the interests of public sector leaseholders in the borough of Tower Hamlets.

It provides advice and support for issues such as excessive charges, poor block maintenance, major works procedures and other areas of dispute between the council and leaseholders.

It has a long and successful record of intervention, support and action. Now join us on twitter too: http://twitter.com/thethla

Here's the August 2010 newsletter: http://www.thethla.co.uk/files/THLA_Newsletter_August_2010.pdf with information doe the AGM and news of current campaigns and actions. Enjoy!

Nomination for Committee Members

The Annual General Meeting of the association will take place on 7pm at:

Venue : Collingwood TRA Hall
Address: Collingwood Street
City : London
Post Code: E1 5PY

Both members and prospective members are welcome, but only members will be able to vote. There will be a report on finances, election of a renewed committee and discussion/suggestions on the future direction of the association.

Nomination forms for committee posts can be downloaded below, please return to THLA, 6 Watney Market, London E1 2PR, by 4pm Monday 20 September 2010. You can aslo nominate using the nomination form http://www.thethla.co.uk/content/nomination-form-committee-agm , but a signed form needs to be returned as well.

Well, THH now has it's own graffiti team with an expensively marked van, to supplement and duplicate the council's failing graffiti team.

So, as with the ASB, we are adding another layer of expense and failure. Of course, the new graffiti team must be managed as well, by expensive but unproductive managers who are re-charged in 'administration' and 'management' charges.

Perhaps. everything in the council can be duplicated?

Incidentally, the ASB team which shows such tremendous commitment also has previous form in the council for commitment to (wait for it) overtime. ASB is not being dealt with at any level but the trough is well-attended and feeding time comes often.

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).