April 2021

Here it is the first GSA newsletter!

A newsletter to keep the residents up-to-date on all the issues that have been ‘going on over the last couple of months’. That’s a little misleading as these actions had been agreed and signed off in October 2020, and many of these actions have been going on for many years…

Great!  At last, action to rectify the many building issues that are not fit for purpose in some areas.  It is annoying that if GSA had addressed these issues when first reported, these repairs would have been covered by GSA insurance and the residents would not have been subject to costs.  There would also have been no need for a Section 20 consult.  

We are on the right track!  Although late and with costs being passed on to residents they can be assured that many of them won’t have to suffer another winter with doors and windows that don’t always shut.  

We seem to have a change of adjective here.  The first set of wooden doors that Emma Stone said weren’t fit for purpose, who is (we can assume) qualified to know in her role of Head of Neighbourhoods at GreenSquareAccord.  These unfit doors, for reasons only known to GSA, were replaced with the same type of wooden doors which of course failed again, this time due to misuse. 

This is annoying as the residents had made GSA aware on numerous occasions about this misuse, please see our article on this misuse.

However now the residents have to cover the cost.  Perhaps the newsletter should have addressed the reason behind why GSA chose to ignore their own Head of Neighbourhoods, and why these costs are now being passed on to residents.

Thank goodness GSA are finally concerned about anti-social behaviour because the residents of Maureen Christian House (who have repeatedly raised this issue) weren’t convinced this was the case.  This is also long overdue as the issue was first raised on the 18th April 2019:

Antisocial behaviour and forced entry – The immediate issues with the door entry system have been resolved. We’ve asked our Service Charge and Leasehold Manager to investigate whether further works are required together with the anti social behaviour issues you’ve raised. They will be back in the office on Tuesday.

Julianne Britton | Head of Customer Services (via email)

The police has also raised this as an issue - email dated 20th November 2020.

…They believe the main issue is access to both the blocks and underground parking area which the team have reported on a number of occasions to Green Square Housing…

Debbie F**** ***** | Support Officer for Oxford City LPA | Senior Management Team(Superintendent ******** / Ch.Insp ******** / DCI Bruce Riddell*******)St 

That’s good to know - the sooner the residents report it the quicker GSA can ‘get it fixed’

As the residents had reported some of these issues over two years previously perhaps a definition of what GSA mean by ‘quicker we can fix it’. This suggests that GSA are blaming these delays on residents not reporting issues quickly enough, which is of course not the case.