04-08-2015, 09:10 PM
1
What happened at our residents' meeting tonight with the housing assocations
Meeting scheduled to start at 6, meeting in our car park, then adjourning to the church a 5 minute walk away. No, not the church opposite which is the cause of a lot of our problems.Present were 4 people from the HAs, and possibly 9 residents (one being the caretaker who let us in to have the side room for our meeting.)
When one HA turned up at 5.45, there was a bunch of Irish blokes already in our car park, trying to flog a van, so one of our residents - a mouthy little chap whose partner started the whole ball rolling - challenged them, they nearly got into an altercation, so I said to this lady (I will call her D1) who got worried, 'look, this is what we wanted you to see. This is part of our problem.'
We noticed that a car belonging to a church member - who parks here every day - was here, she was walking back and forth, so the HAs made mental notes.
We walked up the road, had our meeting - they propose a half swing gate to stop vehicles coming in, a parking enforcement company - issuing permits, and fining owners who have no right being here, and hopefully improving the bin shed area, because it's prone to being messy, we have van loads of people coming in every day looking for stuff, and who are sometimes intimidating. And the big issue of the fly tipping.
We got back here about 7.30. Continued discussions about other issues. The bitch from the church was back and forth, so D2 (my HA manager) said to her, excuse me, are you a resident?
Who are you?
Well, F, my neighbour and I, were just gobsmacked!
D2 then said, 'Well you're not allowed to park here'. And she continued to challenge D2, saying I have family and friends here, and when told there will be parking enforcement said, I'll just get a permit then. Asked, who is your family? 'I'm not telling you that.' And stood arguing with a member of our management. Her attitude and responses were just priceless!!
D2 turned to us when the conversation finished and she looked furious.
So then...there was a discussion between the two Ds, does that HA, which is the social block and they are supposed to be recovering alcoholics (HAH, F soon put them right about that!) have any parking bays allocated to them? And D1 seems to think no, they haven't. In which case, she has no right on that score to come in and park there. And she is paying them to park, which we know because she told us.
So, their manager is going to write to them saying their tenancies could be threatened if they continue.
THEN! We were all standing in the driveway and a big red van with two burly blokes started to come inside so I stood in their way and I challenged them! I stared at them through their windscreen and asked, who are you, what do you want? The driver indicated he wanted to turn round. So I motioned with my hand, and said, go out and do it. You're not coming in here. So he reversed out.
D2, my manager, said, blimey Janet, you were brave! And F, later on when she phoned me, said Janet that was brilliant what you did with the red van. I said because they p*** me off so much!! And of course, we were a big group standing there in the way.
All in all, we couldn't have set up the evening any better! A couple of the tenants were being aggressive and accusing the HAs, as F and I discussed on the phone later and I agreed saying they are trying to work with us, not against us. They ARE being positive about these issues and are being very helpful, and of course all four of them have given up their time to be here tonight.
Going to bed a bit of a happy bunny.
Oh, shooting off at 9.30 tomorrow morning for a 10am meeting at the town hall, a police bloke giving a talk about the law and criminal activities on allotments, and talking about CCTV (it's illegal apparently). I'm taking 1 lady, and our Chair will also go. Should be interesting.
Night night!
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