Somerton House Tenant’s Association

Wine in The Crypt

Thursday 22 May 2008

Residents of Somerton House are warmly invited to the formal reopening of The Crypt, the art gallery under St Pancras Church, following the first phase of redevelopment and restoration of St Pancras Parish Church. Any time between 6.00pm and 8.30pm.

The Crypt provides an intensely atmospheric backdrop to promote the work of a wide variety of visual artists and sculptors, kept under the watchful eye of the caryatids.  Forget all connotations of the dark and dank, The Crypt is a place to celebrate life and human creative achievement, presenting a series of intimate spaces for the contemplation and enjoyment of art.

Come and see this wonderful subterranean world under St Pancras for yourselves.  You will be most welcome to call in for as short or long a period as you wish, and enjoy “Still Another Place”, an exhibition of artwork by Simon Dawe, Julie Goldsmith, Rachel Schwalm, Paul Vanstone and Felicity Warbrick.  These five London artists display a rich variety of pieces including paintings, stone and bronze sculpture, soap and clay carving, and objects rendered in a mixture of materials.

Please RSVP by May 15:

Email: vicar@stpancraschurch.org

Or tel: 020 7388 1461

For further information on St Pancras Church  and details of a their training programme for active retired people, a volunteer training programme and a lunch club for the over 60s. Also details of services.  www.stpancraschurch.org

For Details and Minutes from TA meetings, log in to the residents forum.

If you have not recieved or have lost your log in details email us at the TA and we’ll re-issue you a username and password.

The Forum is a private area of the website, only residents can access it. You are free to discuss anything you like.

At a planning committee meeting on 28th February 2008, London Borough of Camden Planning Committee approved the plans for a ten storey tower block on the site of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital for women.

You are strongly urged to object to the plans in writing to the Government Office for London. This is the only organisation we can contact to request an inquiry into the plans.

As part of the planning application process, a representative from the Planning Department at the London Borough of Camden must prepare a report for the Planning Committee to consider. In the report for the EGA site, the planning officer has lied. Here we paste the exact paragraph which is contended:

7.5.3.  Overlooking/privacy issuesThere are no significant overlooking issues arising between the development and flats at Grafton Chambers, Wellesley House, Seymour House and Somerton House. As far as Somerton House is concerned, the distance between it and the proposed Block A office tower would be 38m at their closest points. Furthermore they would be separated by a busy traffic route and there would be no facing habitable rooms.Residents will be able to see several inaccuracies and misdirections with this paragraph:

• It states that no habitable rooms will be facing the development. Since 1964, SIXTEEN habitable rooms have been located opposite the proposed building site, and would be affected greatly - not least by losing their privacy!
• The paragraph states the distance between the Block A Office Tower (the ten storey Unison tower) and Somerton House. Planning guidelines state that this distance should be the closest two points of the sites, which has not been provided in the Planning Committee’s report.
• The paragraph also states that a busy road lies between the EGA site and Somerton House. This is an irrelevant misdirection on behalf of the council employee. It would not matter whether there was a river between the two buildings - at six storeys and higher the traffic is not a concern.

You can write to the Government Office for London,  requesting that a Planning Inquiry be held, on the above grounds. This is, unfortunately, a matter where the more support the Government Office receives, the more notice it will take. Spend five minutes writing your letter today and post it to:

Government Office For London
Riverwalk House
157-161 Millbank
London
SW1P 4RR

View the Report to the Planning Committee

Capital Projects Works  

A meeting and ‘walk about’ with council rep’s and contractors that carried out the Capital Projects Works at Somerton House has been arranged for the morning of Feb 14th, by local ward Councillor Geethika Jayatilaka.

This is to finally get unfinished works and long over due snagging completed and also to re put residents complaints and concerns over the new windows fitted, being unsuitable for an exposed high rising building such as Somerton House.

The update on the outcome of this meeting will be posted in the foum, but already there are signs of jobs / snagging / missed work is now being completed around the building for example: the fire extinguishers have been mounted to the wall, Two bulbs are now fitted in the Lift rather that the normal one, ceiling lights have been replaced, handrails fixed, bin chute repaired, floor panels on the 6th floor have been made safe ready for repair and new signage has been placed.

Councillor Jayatilaka, has been some what of a champion for residents of Somerton House over the years, following up concerns tenants have raised, along with attending meetings, and generally being helpful and very approachable. We thank her for her help and continued support.

Somerton House TA Chair, Simon, who was re-elected unanimously at the November AGM, has sent a blistering message to the staff of Camden’s housing department.

In an open email to Neil Litherland, Director of Housing, Simon explains in no uncertain terms that over the last two years, the people responsible for renovating Somerton House under the “Pride of Place” scheme have wasted money, accepted and paid for work which was grossly not fit for it’s purpose, and continued after the works for a total of eighteen months to argue amongst themselves as to who should foot the bill.

The residents fought tooth and nail for renovations to be completed, funding for the renovations came from the Government - tax payers up and down the country footed the bill for council owned homes across the UK to be brought up to an acceptable standard.

Residents of Somerton House have been asked a record three times to submit details of any issues with incomplete work, work which has failed, or outstanding faults. Council representatives have attempted to survey residents within the last week (a fourth time the information has been collected?) - quite helpfully coming out during the working day, when not quite as many people are at home.

The list of issues caused by the “Pride of Place” works has continued to grow as time carries on.

• Residents were shown windows which covered the whole glazed area, but had their light cut by as much as 30% when project manager Edosa changed the design without consulting residents.
• The reduction in glazed area is made up with a plastic sheet - although it is claimed that this material reduces noise, and improves insulation, no proof has been provided, and residents are colder.
• The windows have started to bow in some areas where prevaling northerly winds affect them.
• The windows to not offer any sound insulation, as their ’spacing’ - the area between the two sheets of glass, is too narrow for homes on such a busy thoroughfare.
• The concrete panels beneath the windows were insulated with newspaper in some cases. Silicon glue was used to glue the frames together. This is now beginning to fail.
• Some residents have started to get leaks on their floor during heavy rain. Although this was brought to the council’s attention over one year ago, the windows still leak.

Ironically, when complaints were submitted to the Director Of Housing, he instructed the Manager of Pride of Place, Karen Honey, to investigate - never before has the TA known a case where a person actively involved with creating a problem was allowed to investigate how the problem came about. The TA has seen a confidential memo between Mr Litherland and other member of the Council where it is strongly suggested that tenants are to blame.

• Doors were replaced for some residents to keep the area ‘aesthetically pleasing’. These doors to not adhere to British Safety standards. No-one at the Council has been willing to deal with this issue for over eighteen months.

• Communal carpets were removed in favour of a linoleum floor. Except the caretakers have no access to hot water to clean it.

• Access panels to areas beneath the communal corridors were broken by council employees who did not have the correct tool (or training) to raise them. Eighteen months on the building is still awaiting a solution.

• In some cases doors were only painted on the outside, ‘because it didn’t say both sides on the contract’.
• Thomas Sinden, the contractor for the £750,000 renovation work, removed residents stored items from designated locations to water storage cupboards, amongst other areas. Council employees were very quick to remove the personal posessions, without notice, yet are not as quick to fix other faults.

• The Intercom system into the building was interfered with my Sinden contractors. This has now been faulty in most flats since April 2006.

• As part of an ongoing renovation to the Premier Inn hotel, low-level lighting on the ground floor, and essential health & safety lighting on the lower ground floor was removed, and has not been reinstated by the Council - they are too busy arguing over who can pay for an essential safety item.

This is only the surface of what has been an ongoing battle to give the residents of Somerton House a home fit for purpose.

The building freeholder, Whitbread plc, and Camden Council’s press office have been asked for a comment on this article. When responses are received we will post them here.

The Vicar of St Pancras Parish Church, Paul Hawkins would be very grateful if you could help him with a Consultation he wants to carry out about how the building and site of St Pancras Parish Church, Euston Road, could offer more to the wider community.

Parish churches have for centuries been buildings available for a variety of purposes alongside their primary role as places for Christian prayer and worship.At present the Crypt is a very active and innovative art gallery, the Church itself is in regular use for recitals and concerts, lectures, and similar events, and the Church Hall welcomes a range of groups and organisations from across the local community and beyond.

St Pancras Parish Church, otherwise known as the Vicar Paul Hawkins and his merry band of helpers would very much value your input as they start planning further development of the use of this site. If you could join them in the Church for about an hour from 7.00pm on Thursday December 13, they would be very pleased. Equally, if there is anyone you would like to invite or to bring along, that would be excellent, just make sure that you let the Vicar know how many of you are coming.

Light refreshments will be served from 6.30pm, and they will be offering ‘behind the scenes’ tours of the building. It would help the Vicar and his merry band of helpers if you could reply either by telephoning the parish office on 020 7388 1461 or by emailing him at vicar@stpancraschurch.org letting him know if you are going to attend, so he has an idea how many will turn up.

Thank you on behalf of
Paul Hawkins
(the Vicar)

See you there

Simon

Somerton House Tenant’s Association have submitted an objection to Camden Council planning department. You can view it as a word file here: shtaobjection-20073736p1.doc.

Camden Council planning department have accepted the application, which was submitted on behalf of all tenants in Somerton House.

You can still join the campaign against the Unison tower yourself - by writing or emailing the Council’s planning department. The more response they get, the more effective our collective voice will be.

Visit http://stoptheunisontower.com for more information on the planning application, and the objections to it.

When plans were first submitted to the Council, and residents of Somerton House reacted angrily and fearfully to the proposals, a local Councillor contacted both Unison and Squire & Partners with a view to setting up a meeting.

The residents and the Councillor were both very hopeful of a meeting within the following week, or so. No response was forthcoming, and the suggested meeting date came and went without a word from Unison.

Over one month later, with model and photography proudly displayed, Unison, Quatro PR and Squire & Partner all managed to attend a meeting with residents. The meeting location and time were agreed with less than a week to go, so residents were very happy with their turnout of over 25% of residents. Word of mouth quickly spread the news of the site, it’s scale and the oppressing view of it from Somerton House.

Unison have apologised for not being as organised with the consultation to the south of Euston Road as they were with the residents to the north.

The proposers of the development explained their plans to the residents, along with photographic ‘now and then’ examples. Residents of Somerton House expressed their concern that the building was quite so tall, quite so close, and quite obtrusive. Although the representatives agreed unanimously that they would not mind living in Somerton House, even with their new office block in place, it was conceded by the P.R. representative that they are developing a big building, and it will have an impact on the lives of residents.

The meeting ended after 45 minutes, when it became apparent that Unison were not willing to budge on their idea, and that residents were even more determined to campaign against the plans after seeing the model and photography.

The Meeting was held on the 2nd of Novmber 2007 in the TA room at Somerton House.

The Tenant’s Association has called the Annual General Meeting for November 13th 2007, in the Tenant’s Room, 6th floor.

The meeting will start at 7:00 PM, but you are welcome for tea and refreshments from 6:30 PM.