Silchester Residents Association regeneration sub-committee
Wednesday April 20th, 19.30
Present: Derek White (Chair), Jo Poole (minutes), Mary White, Eman Yosry, Michael Jardine, John Murphy, Piers Thompson, Nahid Ashby
Apologies: Hannah Thomson, Ann-Marie Richardson
- The ITLA (Independent Tenants and Leaseholders adviser) brief revised since Derek White and Hannah Thomson met Ruth Angel is a great improvement on the original version.
We would like to see the following further amendments before approving the brief:
•The 4th bullet point- the summary report is to be circulated to the SRA (Silchester Residents Association) and the council, as is all information.
•SRA is to be involved in the final ITLA contract negotiations, interviews and procurement.
•The appointment is to be only for Silchester regeneration, not borough-wide projects.
•RBKC must not be able to appoint an ITLA without the approval of the RAs representing residents from within the regeneration area. This means that: on interviewing ITLAs, if there are 2 representatives of RBKC on the panel and one from the SRA, it cannot legitimately be a vote, and the SRA must effectively have a veto. However, this could change if other RAs are also represented on the panel.We also want to talk to other estates within RBKC undergoing regeneration about their experiences with ITAs/ ITLAs before finally agreeing the brief. - There are 3 talks planned to help residents understand what regeneration means. Publicity is sponsored by the Radical Housing Network and the Silchester Residents’ Association will host.
Talks will be on May 17, June 7 and June 21 (All Tuesdays) in the Silchester Residents Rooms.
Flyers will be delivered during a door knocking exercise on the weekend of May 7th. - Jo Poole and Piers Thompson met Tony Bird, author of Decanting Tenants: A Good Practice Guide.
We heard about decisions made via ballots and resident involvement with procurement and design on other estates in London. - RBKC will be making a decision re: Silchester Regeneration at the Cabinet meeting on 26 May. This is not the full regeneration decision we were told would be made early in 2016, but a decision to abandon the current plans to regenerate the area or to continue with feasibility studies, surveys and provisional plans. We are reminded that in the RBKC Local Plan it states that Silchester will be rebuilt to a new street pattern by 2028.
Estate residents are going to the town hall on May 26 to hear the decision made.
We will write two letters to RBKC to present in the council, one of which will be presented after the decision. - We re-affirmed that this is our community, and it is up to the community to decide its’ future. Any decision to dissolve it should be made by us and not the council. When regeneration decisions are made in the name of community, eg providing for those on the housing list, we want firm commitments as to how many people in need will be provided for.
- Nahid Ashby is working with Cllr Blakeman on an evaluation of the regeneration of the Silchester Garages site into MoreWest. There will be a focus on long-term disruption caused to neighbouring residents and amount of social housing provided in the new development.
- Their is an air pollution monitoring station at Walmer House. Apparently levels of air pollution are already very high.
We will be asking RBKC to ensure that no works will go ahead until measures to mitigate air pollution, both in the demolition and construction phases of new development and within the completed developments to ameliorate pre-existing poor air quality, are agreed. - Events
•SRA to be available to answer regeneration questions at our Fun Day on June 4th.
•We hope to take part in Open Garden Estates weekend, June 18-19. This co-incides with RBKC’s InTRANSIT festival, so we will try and reach the tight deadline for publicity to enter that too. Jo to talk to Constantine Gras about an art exhibition in the Residents’ Rooms during the weekend.