There is only one major topic of conversation among residents of Grenfell Tower at the moment and that is what on earth has happened to the improvement works that our landlord the Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council promised would finally commence on our beleaguered tower block in Spring 2014.
The general consensus in the local community seems to be that the RBKC Council/TMO will not be delivering on their commitments to improve any of the housing stock on Lancaster West Estate any time soon. Residents understand very well that the TMO are not in the business of investing our rent back into maintaining our properties but prefer to spend our money on employee bonuses, hiring layer upon layer of redundant staff and dreaming up daft schemes like trying to fob their tenants off with third rate insurance:
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/tmo-pour-salt-on-a-festering-wound/
Residents have not had any communication from the TMO since a couple of days after the Grenfell Action Group last blogged about the Grenfell Tower fiasco in March 2014. Prior to that we hadn’t heard from the TMO/Council since Christmas. What makes their management of this shambles so upsetting is the complete lack of information provided to residents of Grenfell Tower who have simply no idea what is supposed to be going on with regard to the future of their homes.
We think that Peter Maddison and his colleague, Claire Williams, at the TMO need to explain to our community how they have already managed to spend around 1 million pounds of the 9.5 million budget for the Grenfell Tower improvement works and yet designed to keep the residents of Grenfell Tower so totally uninformed about what is actually going on. Residents want to know about how this money has been spent and why the project is so delayed?
How difficult can it be for the TMO to get it together to post regular updates to residents and treat us with a modicum of respect.? Instead, they choose to treat the Grenfell community with contempt while the budget for the whole Grenfell Tower improvement works is rapidly being drained away. The Grenfell Action Group recently wrote to the TMO under Freedom of Information legislation to find out exactly how much money the TMO has spent on the project so far (without any visible signs of progress) and we will blog again on the subject as soon as we get a response from either Maddison or Williams.
In the meantime, we believe that the conduct of the TMO, their total failure to communicate adequately with the Grenfell Tower community and their refusal to allow residents to form any sort of collective representation bodes very badly for the future.
When push comes to shove, and with levels of trust so low, we have to wonder how many residents will actually engage with the TMO and agree to let their contractors anywhere near the inside of their homes?
Grenfell Action Group 