AGM Minutes

LETRA AGM Meeting Minutes

Meeting held on Thursday 19^th May 2011

Present:

Secretary: Chris (Samuel Richardson)

Suzie (The Grange)

Ron ( Glenallan)

Joan (Glenallan )

Fred (Pelham)

Apologies:

Kathy (Samuel Richardson)

Dawn ( The Grange)

Emma (Mortimer)

Invited Guests:

John Everett

Firstly, LETRA would like to give a big thank you to our retiring Chairperson Kathy for her years of dedicated service. Kathy worked tirelessly on local housing forums and as a committee member for the benefit of the Lytton Estate. Her experience and knowledge of issues will be missed, we hope she will still be able to attend our meetings in the future.

Our guest speaker was John Everett, newly installed Interim Head of Repairs for H&F. John gave a detailed and frank talk on the work of his department and the new systems of works they are bringing in to improve services for residents, admitting things hadn't always been perfect in the past. Appointments missed and the work of some building contractors not always being up to scratch, being amongst the bugbears. A new scheme for building contractors is being introduced for internal jobs on properties, with a single unit cost of £135 paid per job, big or small. This he hopes will reduce time-scales and improve quality on jobs. Although, LETRA was concerned to hear that the number of Technical Officers has been reduced from 20 to 6, meaning each officer will now have to cover up to 3000 properties. He also stated that the majority of new works will concentrate on street properties, as they hadn't benefited as much from the Decent Homes scheme as estates have. John then faced some robust questioning from residents, with leaking roofs and condensation in flats being of concern to residents. He said H&F plan to publish a leaflet on condensation and would try to do more for those affected.

Lastly, we held our elections for the Committee. Joan was elected as our new Chairperson, the rest of the committee stays the same, apart from the addition of Isabel from The Grange.

Our next committee meeting is Thursday 16^th June.