The Hyde Group has written to Kennington Park Estate residents telling us they are going to change what was agreed when we voted to transfer to Hyde Southbank Homes in 2005 by removing the element of local control we have through the HSH Board.
We oppose this. Why?
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We are being gobbled up!
We voted to transfer to a small, Lambeth-based organisation with local management and local control, not a large corporation. The Hyde Group manages 49,000 properties (not just in London, but also across the South East, the East of England and the East Midlands), and wants to get bigger. HSH covers 3,200 properties at the Oval and Stockwell. We are the minnow being gobbled up by the whale. A more remote HSH Board with no HSH residents and no local councillors means no local voice, no local control, no local understanding, no local knowledge, and is very likely to result in a less responsive service to us at the local level.
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We are told we can comment,
but do we have a choice?
Hyde’s leaflet states very clearly “There is no veto by residents”. If Hyde can unilaterally change this aspect of what was agreed in 2005, what else are they planning to change? Remember, they tried to close the Magee Street Office at one point and it was only because residents were there at the Board meeting to argue against it that they were not able to do it. It was saved by local residents who knew what they were talking about and by local councillors who were there to support residents
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We will be drowned out!
Hyde tell us we will be represented on their new Common Board by the chairs of two “group-wide residents committees”. That means there is unlikely to be any representation from either KPE or the HSH area, even though our inner city estates and issues are often very different from Hyde residents living in places like Peterborough or Chichester.
But, Hyde will no doubt argue, you will still have a local Resident Assurance Committee. But the new RAC has little power, the power that matters will be with the remote Common Board. RAC members are hand-picked by Hyde, they are not elected by us, and they don’t have to tell us what they’re doing. It is not the RAC which is challenging Hyde about their poor services and high charges. It is KPE TA representatives who are scrutinising service charges, questioning the inaccurate charges for communal electricity and CCTV, rejecting Hyde’s daft parking proposals, demanding improved estate cleaning, repairs and gardening.
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Centralisation means poorer services!
We’ve all experienced Hyde’s centralised Call Centre where the operatives don’t know who or where we are, or the history of the problem we’re trying to tell them about. And what about the 2011 digital TV aerials fiasco, when KPE residents rejected Hyde’s plans to charge us nearly £400 for aerials we neither wanted nor needed? That was a central Hyde decision. They told us then we had no choice – but faced with a majority of KPE residents signing our petition against it (and with the support of our MP) they backed down.
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Local Voices Mean Better Services!
A genuine independent local voice equals better services. We must not allow Hyde to reduce our local democracy. We have a right to object – and Hyde has a responsibility not to ignore us!
This leaflet represents the views of members of the Executive Committee of the Tenants’ Association and will be for discussion at the next full TA meeting on 25 September 2013. Not everyone will agree, but that’s what local democracy is all about!
Come and join the discussion!
We will be attending Hyde’s consultation meeting in the Community Centre on 18 September at 6pm. See you there!
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We are not alone in our opposition to Hyde’s proposals. On 9 September the following was agreed unanimously by the members of the HSH Residents’ Forum, which is where representatives of the Tenants’ and Residents’ Associations in Stockwell and Oval meet:
“In the light of, for example, our experience (as residents) of Hyde’s centralised call centre where the operatives do not know who we are or where we are or the history of the problem we are trying to tell them about, this Forum, on behalf of HSH residents, is seriously concerned that a more remote HSH Board with no HSH residents and no local councillors means no local voice, no local control, no local understanding, no local knowledge and is very likely to result in a less responsive service to us at the local level. The Forum, therefore, objects to Hyde reducing our local democracy in this way.”