14th May 2014

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Minutes of a Meeting of the Garrison Residents’ Association held on the 14th May 2014 at Hinguar School

Present

  • John Dowell (Chairman)
  • Chris Coomber (Hon Treasurer)
  • Adrian Walker (Hon Secretary)
  • Jonathan Hunnable
  • Barry Spinks
  • Ian Dally 
  • Scott James 
  • Michael Kennedy 
  • Matthew Brittain
  • Vivian Jones

Apologies

  • Vivien Byczinski
  • Daniel Puddick
  • Jamie Robinson
  • Cliff Marshall

John Dowell opened the meeting with a reference to the following week’s scheduled meeting between officers and Mr. George Cronin, Managing Director of Shoebury Garrison Management Company Ltd. JD said he’d had a lot of trouble communicating with GC, but had eventually held a long telephone conversation with him on May 7th. C&M is currently in a difficult position owing to delays on certain projects, a shortage of materials, especially bricks, and the proposed sale of Avanta (the new name for C&M/Gladedale). GC still intends to be off the site by October. JD said the GRA needed a schedule from C&M regarding the handover of site management, including the election of a new board of directors for SGMCL.

Tennis courts/MUGA

Various changes have been made to the plans and Southend Borough Council’s DDC Committee approved some of these on March 5th; those decisions were subsequently deferred to May 7th, when a public meeting was to be held, but this has since been deferred to June 11th. We will therefore have to wait for developments. Matters deferred are in theory a rubber stamp procedure to approve amendments to amendments. Ian Dally noted there had been a posting on Facebook claiming the GRA had organised a petition against the MUGA; this is entirely incorrect.

Sea wall

SBC had asked C&M to provide a banker’s draft to guarantee completion of their responsibilities with regard to the sea wall repairs, but GC is confident the works would be completed on time.

Fitness centre/spa

This is still not open for business and JD’s view is the GRA should do nothing till the situation was clarified. He said since the site was a commercial enterprise they should pay a commercial estate charge rather than the assessment equivalent to two dwellings already suggested, but invoices have already been issued for the first half of 2014. Chris Coomber wanted to know if the spa owners had paid for the inclusion of the advertising flyer sent with the invoices. Viv Jones asked what the spa estate charges should be but JD said this was up for discussion.

B2C Drill Shed apportionment

JD said the owners had been sent their first bill for the Drill Shed but this had been for only two years, even though completion of the sale of the site had been 9/8/10 and estate charges should date from then. JD said he had asked GC to instruct Nationspaces to issue a credit note to B2C for the invoice already issued, so that a new one could be created. This hadn’t happened and B2C had, not surprisingly, already paid the bill. He commented that even with the best efforts of the GRA, we seemed to be dealing with people who simply don’t know what they’re doing. JD suggested any underpayment by B2C should be made up by C&M. GC had agreed to put this to his legal department and Jonathan Hunnable said the shortfall could still be made up legally. JD said the substance of the meeting with GC on May 20th would be centred on financial matters and monies owing to SGMCL.

Revised Garrison site management agreement

Jonathan Hunnable had a meeting with GC and Sorrell’s two weeks previously to discuss agreement drafts and GC had subsequently sent JH a further amended draft based on that meeting. JH said he would go through that draft before the May 20th meeting. JH said that at the meeting two weeks previously he had suggested to GC that existing GRA members should be represented on the new SGMCL board for purposes of continuity. GC had indicated he wanted the tendering process to be completed by the end of July.

2012 financial statements

These are now completed and statements for 2013 are in preparation. GC had acknowledged there are monies owed to residents on uncollected estate/service charges, maintenance and other work uncompleted and errors of judgement. JD said previous financial statements, however we may regard them, are necessary to complete the picture for moving the Garrison forward. GC had agreed verbally on previous occasions to a number of financial commitments.

Westgate

The matter of ownership was still with C&M’s lawyers, but JD reiterated that the area is of no practical use to residents and would be an onerous responsibility after C&M leaves the site.

Narrow service charges

Plots 1-25 were originally granted freedom from paying charges, but there are plans afoot to deal with the matter without charges falling on the rest of the residents.

Arrears

There was still £20k outstanding from residents and an investigation had shown that around £12k of this was owed by six residents still on site. JD speculated these are residents with grievances against C&M/Nationspaces, which Ralph Syme has not remedied. JD said C&M should pay these debts and subsequently assign them to SGMCL for ultimate recovery.

Leasehold property maintenance

JD reminded the meeting that Section 20 paperwork for the overdue maintenance of the leasehold properties had been raised and dispatched and surveyors had been instructed to draw up calculations. Only one resident had been in arrears with service charges. An error had subsequently been discovered in the Section 20 documents. GC and Ralph Syme met with the residents concerned and promised to confirm their proposals in writing. This was never done and now C & M discover that further information in the Section 20 paperwork was incorrect, including the fact that at least one property included in the survey was freehold, not leasehold and therefore not liable for any costs. C&M’s legal department has tried to resolve the situation but has failed to come up with a solution. The overdue maintenance work was due to start in spring 2014 and already we were close to summer. JD said all this should lead to C&M being asked to pay for the work now and then recover what costs it could from residents, but whatever solution was found, it could not be just left till after C&M had quit the site; we had reached the crunch point.

Heritage Centre

A number of changes to the Heritage Centre plans had been proposed at a meeting in March but these have been deferred to June. Changes included some to the car park, an extension to Warrior Square Road and the restriction of access to the site to avoid unauthorised use by vehicles.

Gunnery House

It has been proposed to rename that part of Chapel Road that includes Gunnery House, to make it a separate area in order to facilitate the introduction of parking restrictions.

Mailing

The GRA had agreed with GC that a letter from him would be included with the latest invoice from Nationspaces, setting out details of the site hand-over to residents. Not only did RS fail to include the letter, but Nationspaces’ own letter included in the mailing was inaccurate and offered residents the choice of paying their service/estate charges in instalments, a facility he is not empowered to offer, nor one that would be in the interests of efficient collection of such charges.

Any other business

Garrison Developments has now sought planning permission for its development on Gunners’ Park and JD said residents have the right to express a view about it. There is a multi-use games area and skateboard park included in the plans even though SBC has plans for a similar facility as part of the new recreation area close to Gunners’ Rise. JD suggested we posted news of the development on the GRA website and invited views from residents. There followed a discussion about the pros and cons of the development and it was generally agreed that it would not have a positive effect on The Garrison site and pressure from extra traffic would have a negative impact on surrounding roads.

Accounts: balances 31/3/13-3/5/14

Current account          £289.44

Savings account          £161.51

Petty cash                    £1.16

Total                            £452.11

There being no further business, the meeting ended at 9.20 pm.