Soloman’s Passage

Sounding Board Meeting Thursday 16th February 2017 6:30-8:30pm

Meeting Minutes

Attendees

Elaine Ofomi, former B44 tenant

Elaine Ogunka, former B44 tenant

Tara Osbourne-Wallace, former B42 tenant

Michele Angibeaud, B44 tenant

Angela Wilson, B46 leaseholder

Jackie Thomas, Wandle Head of Housing

Sarah Jones, Wandle Asset Investment Sub-Committee Board member

Laura Glasgow, Wandle Major Projects Manager

Mekor Newman, NewmanFrancis Director

Lily Glasser, NewmanFrancis Project Worker

5 residents attended as observers.

Actions and agreements in BOLD

1. The members of the Sounding Board took it in turns to introduce themselves.

Jackie Thomas, Head of Housing, was introduced as the new voting Sounding Board member from Wandle, in replacement of Laura Glasgow, Major Projects Manager. The decision to change Wandle membership was based on new staff, new streams of work and a concern to make the membership more people-focused. The new Rehousing Manager, Paula Sterling-Lawless, reports to Jackie and these two members of staff will be working with residents the most. It was noted that Laura will still attend to update the group on the management of the development, but will lose the right to vote.

2. The Sounding Board reviewed the actions from the minutes of the last meeting, with the follow actions and updates:

a)The Sounding Board agreed and signed-off The Terms of Reference and Code of Conduct. ACTION: NewmanFrancis to work with residents and Wandle to review the request from residents that observers are able to ask questions at meeting, and make recommendations to the next meeting.

b) ACTION: NewmanFrancis to share updated indicative timeline with members.

c) Ongoing: NewmanFrancis to programme the procurement training with RSG members in line with the development programme timeline.

d) Ongoing: Wandle to define what areas of design can be informed by residents.

e) The Residents’ Charter had been developed since the last meeting and brought back for approval.

f) ACTION: Wandle to provide more formal clarification of therole of the Rehousing Manager.

3. The Sounding Board reviewed the Residents’ Charter.

a)The following guarantees were agreed: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11

b) The rest of the document was agreed with the following amendments:

i. Jackie Thomasupdated the group on Wandle's position on rent guarantees for Solomon's Passage and other Wandle properties. Minutes of this section of the meeting cannot be agreed by betweenresident Sounding Board members, Wandle Sounding Board membersand NewmanFrancis.

It was agreed that further clarification should be provided around the negotiation process with the GLA regarding rent guarantees for new builds, including an explanation of what a 'reciprocal agreement' means and involves.

ii. Inclusion of a standard form of contract in the Residents’ Charter will only be provided for privately rented accommodation for tenants and leaseholders, and not for all rehousing options.

It was noted that an allocations policy may be produced by the next Sounding Board meeting.ACTION: NewmanFrancis to generate a list of FAQs around this policy so that residents fully understand the complexity of the process and are prepared for consultation on the document once it is produced. Additional priority for rehousing residents that had decided to stay on the estate was felt as not fair. The point was made that residents who had moved away temporarily may have choice to stay if they knew that there would be a priority for moving into new homes on Soloman’s Passage. This was noted by Jackie as an area to look at.

iii. ‘For residents already living in privately rented accommodation, Wandle will agree to cover increases in rent levels that are in line with market increases in that area and this will be evaluated on a case by case basis’. It was noted that residents would have to move if rents became unreasonable.

iv. It was noted that returning shared owners do not accept Wandle's Guarantees on temporary private accommodation or the compensation for the inconvenience. Previous amendments to Wandle’s guarantees on compensation to leaseholders/shared owners had not been approved by Wandle and it was agreed that they would revert back to the original guarantee.

v. ACTION: Wandle to add Jackie Thomas to the contacts section and describe each of the roles of the key contacts.

vi. It was agreed that the development of an allocations policy will take precedence for the next meeting over the development of other Appendices which can be worked on after that. ACTION: Wandle to discuss a timeline for the production of the allocations policy.

4. Updates on the project’s indicative timeline and resident involvement in the development:

There has been a delay in the planning application due to additional reports and back and forth with planners, but this hasn't changed the indicative timeline for the new build. ACTION: Laura agreed to clearly highlight for the meeting any changes in the time frame on the time line in future.

There was a second consultation event held for the wider community and it was noted that the wider community will not be able to influence design options proposed to Solomon’s Passage residents. It was noted that the architects took on board what Solomon’s Passage residents had mentioned in the first event and, where possible, had changed some of the open-plan living spaces into separate rooms. ACTION: Laura Glasgow to get the number of flats with open plans or separate rooms.

ACTION: NewmanFrancis and Wandle to upload slides from both consultation events to their websites. It was agreed that whenever there is ever a vote on design, there should be a system in place for those residents who have not turned up to the meeting. It was agreed that the architects' model could be brought along for specific events.

Laura Glasgow outlined Wandle’s position on residents’ input on design. It was noted that the site is very restrictive and so resident involvement will include standard selection on colours, kitchens and bathrooms and possibly lighting.

The procurement process has been moved back due to the delays with the planning application. Laura Glasgow proposed that the RSG gets involved by generating questions on quality that Wandle can put forward for the selection of the contractors.

The contractors will be selected from the SEC and LCP frameworks, frameworks which Wandle have used before. Frameworks are necessary for narrowing down the selection process and saving time.

It is possible that if a cost cannot be agreed with a contractor, then the project could be put to tender again, thought this is very unlikely.

It was noted that the type of work done on the frames of blocks 40 and 46 will be understood with further tests once the blocks are fully vacated.

5. It was agreed there will be clarification in the Residents' Charter about the nature of the Charter, as a list of guarantees from Wandle that do not imply acceptance by residents. It was agreed that the introduction would include 'this does not impinge your rights to take legal advice'.

6. It was noted that there is a slower pace of newsletters coming from Wandle now that the project is on course and that there are also bi-monthly newsletters coming from NewmanFrancis. It was agreed that every effort should be made to ensure residents living temporarily off-site receive the same communications as those living on site.

7. It was agreed that the next Sounding Board meeting will take place on Thursday 20th April 2017. ACTION: NewmanFrancis to make a diary appointment for the meeting on Outlook. It was agreed that minutes from the meeting should be agreed with members within 2 weeks.

8. Wandle's finances were discussed. Sarah Jones stated that Wandle has modelled the worst case scenarios so that they can bare the risk of the project and can ensure residents that Wandle is financially resilient. Wandle’s money comes from rent and reserves and they borrow from banks and gain grants in order to build new housing. The main thing they are keeping an eye on is Brexit, and if it came to it, they could spend less money by building less houses.

There is a commitment torehouse Solomon’s Passage residents in the new build on Solomon’s Passage before shared ownership sales are taken into account.

Due to the transformation of blocks 40 and 46 from leaseholder/shared ownership to mixed tenure, returning shared owners faces financial concerns about the depreciation of value of their property, which was noted as a point for future discussion. ACTION: Angela to provide the previous guarantee issued by Wandle that homes on Solomon’s Passage that do not meet current residents’ needs will go back to shared ownership.

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