During the meeting that the Curnock TRA has organised on the 26th April 2012 we managed to write down some intresting statements. Please read our notes from that meeting.

Susan Gorrie, Chair of the Curnock TRA, started the meeting by outlining the agenda. Then she introduced John Wheatman and Stuart Dilley. She continued by saying:

"I am glad to point out to people that both of these officers came into this situation after it all began. They haven't been here from day one. And I know from the conversations that I had that they have done a lot to get to the bottom of the problem and to resolve the issues and to try make things better for us. So please bear that in mind because this is not a personal attack on anybody. This is a problem we had for a long time that we want to get some resolution for."

When the Curnock TRA chair finished her introduction, Stuart Dilley, Assistant to the Director of Housing, said the following:

- John Wheatman (Head of Mechanical and Electrical Services) has joined Camden Council on August 2011 "as part of the restructure that I did on the division to realign our services around providing a better quality of service to take some cost out to ensure that we are more efficient and to ensure we have the technical capacity and expertise to deal with issues across the whole remit."

- “ The first thing that I wanted to say is that the service that you have received from the council in the past until rovently recently is that the one that has not been acceptable. So first of behalf of the council I would like to apologize for that. I know that you were going through a period where the council hasn’t provided the level of services that you should have every right to expect and one of the reasons I was brought to the post was to ensure that we did provide and do provide in the future better services to our community. Not just yourselves but the community across Camden. And that is a commitment to you.”

- “What I would say is that since John been on board we’ve redesigned the whole of the service that we provide in terms of mechanical and electrical services and hopefully you’ve noticed the improvement that I believe is a significant improvement in terms of your hot water than we have received in the past. So I think we are on the road to improve service that I said before, the level of service that you received in the past is not one that the council would expect to provide to residents and apologies for that.”

- “We have done very extensive works very recently that John and his team has managed. I’ve been updated on those works on a regular basis”

- “ I was pleased only the other day that a note through John that from a resident from the estate thanking us for the work we’ve done in respect on improving what has been an unsatisfactory level of service on the past. I won’t defend what happened in the past, it is very difficult for me to look back…”

- “It did take a long time but part of that was in ensuring that we only did what was required to resolve the problem.”

- “My understanding from the reports that I had on a weekly basis from John in terms of heating temperatures is that is has now been achieved and the heating and hot water levels are now at level that we expect to see from a system like this on your estate.”

- “Now if people are still getting difficulties with the heating or hot water then please let us know because as far as we are aware there will be isolated issues to individual properties and will do anything we can to try to ascertain what the issues are and resolve those for you.”

Cllr Roger Robinson said the following:

- I am talking to some residents regarding the service charges. I am going to call a meeting with the Home Ownership, Steve Plat, to talk about the possibility to look after the charges and why people pay different service charges and why the lack of heating during the last year hadn’t any effect to the service charges. It is a worry and I cannot see why not having some compensation.

The residents from different blocks mentioned that they still do not have hot water early in the morning or in some cases they have to leave the water running for 45 mins before it gets hot.

Stuart Dilley said that he hadn’t heard of those problems before but they will take the contact details of the affected residents and they will take some action.

Then he mentioned the following:

"I think we need to focus on the issues that have been raised and to put in place some solutions in some very valid points that you have come up with. Thank you for raising those with us."

In response to another resident's questions about future works he stated:

"We are planning to do a fairly large mechanical and electrical upgrade across the whole of the Camden in the next three years. So the likelihood is that we will do further works here but we will come and talk you about those works what they are for, what they are all about, and into proper consultation about those works."

Finally another resident asked him if the boiler plant is fit for purpose today. He replied:

STUART DILLEY: "Obviously it is not because there are a number of issues that have been raised around here tonight."