'Local Man Bags a 20 Pounder'

William Finlay a tenant of Dumbreck Court and a member of our tenants and residents association has bagged a belter in Loch Awe Willie fought for half an hour to reel in this large Brown Trout weighing in at 20lb 4oz... well done mate!!!

But are the stories of your little boat being dragged all over the Loch true, or are these fishy tales the mutterings of other jealous would be fishermen going home with their baggie minnies?

What a catch william that must be a record for Loch Awe my only question now would be who's going for the chips and brown sauce ?

'Revolution' in Housing

Tenant’s wishes are being disregarded by the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council as tenant run Local Housing Organisations across the city voted to remain within the Glasgow Housing Association and ignore plans to move to Second Stage Transfer.  As 86% of Tenants believe they are being better served remaining with the GHA a large organisation that is delivering real changes to the dilapidated housing stock run into the ground by the old City Council housing officials, these very officials that are now threatening to curtail the aspirations of tenants across our city. 

It seems the powers that be, never for a moment envisaged a situation where tenants would control such a large organisation which is now becoming highly effective at bringing real benefits to local people living in social housing, with services such as a new 24/7 customer contact centre where tenants can have any problem dealt with quickly.  The GHA have brought tenants a revolution in repairs, where the tenant’s are in control not the contractor, and HOMECHOICE a new way of getting the house you want to live in within the area you choose. All of this as well as hundreds of millions in investment in our houses and new properties are now being threatened by city council leaders and their political games at the expense of tenants.

The new governance policy being worked on by tenants all over the city will bring control of the GHA to the tenants of Glasgow giving Glaswegians something they have never had before ‘a voice’ that will sound loudly for tenants when dealing with the City Council, and Scottish Government and will give tenants control of their future housing needs, but this revolution is being attacked by politicians of certain political parties and their councillors who wish to bring tenant control to an end, they are running scared of the promised tenant empowerment and how it might affect them and their ability to control these uppity 'unqualified' tenants.  Look around and see the investment being put directly into our homes by GHA’s Local Housing Organisation’s and remember the days when the City Council (mis)-managed the housing stock and tenants paid the price.

It seems now that because the stock is being renewed, the City Council (only too glad to be rid of us in the past) would now like to have us back and proceed to run the stock back into the ground while using money ear-marked for housing on its own projects like the M74 extension and the 2014 games not to mention its plans for the regeneration of the city centre at our expense.

If we tenants wish to remain in control of our future housing needs we must stand up and be counted, make our voices heard at local, city and national level by demanding that our councillors MP’s and MSP’s support our wishes or we will make our point in the elections by voting them out.

(DTRA)

Read this - GHA Board threatens court action to protect their tenants

Parking "Rendered" Non-Existent

The reason Wates rendered one multi at a time was to avoid major parking issues but as we can all see this has gone awry.  Wates has moved one of their render teams to Block 40 in preparation for rendering, this move may save time and inconvenience ‘to Wates’ but it makes a bad parking situation worse for the tenants and residents of both blocks.

At the meetings with Wates they assured us this type of incident would be avoided at all costs and we now find ourselves in a situation where the contractor makes the rules to suit themselves contrary to what was being told to tenants at the meetings

A number of tenants and residents have found nowhere to park in the car parks (as we have 3 of these car parks being used by Wates),  these tenants have had their cars removed  by the city council for illegal parking virtually outside their own houses because traffic cones had been put out that morning before a football match and the cones had actually  been put in front and behind these cars  and therefore later the cars were removed .

The parking situation is extreme and anything that Wates could do to alleviate the situation would be welcomed by the tenants and residents of Dumbreck Court.

New Customer Contact Centre - "0800 479 7979"

This is the number for the GHA's new Customer Contact centre with this number any housing service problem you may have will be dealt with by the new hi-tech contact centre and it works too....No more long waits at the end of a phone listening to music or being farmed out to a foreign sevice...Not for the GHA!!! This is the first place you should call for all General Enquiries and Payments if you want speed and efficiency.

The centre is available from 8.00am till 8.00pm and there are plans for a future 24 hour service....If you have a problem with any aspect of your housing services your problem will be dealt with by the GHA's new team of resolvers and you will be kept fully informed at all stages. I think this just might be the best Customer Service Centre anywhere!!!

So Remember "0800 479 7979"

"This is a Dangerous Junction"

We have continually told our city officials about the dangerous junction at Dumbreck road / Dumbreck Avenue, yet requests from residents and local councillors for improved traffic control at this junction have been continually ignored by the city council roads and traffic department.

We were told this access road to the M77 and M8 motorways still did not qualify for improved traffic control even considering the area is now the home of Hazelwood School the Education Departments new multi-million Special needs School. 

According to Robert Booth Executive Director of Land and Environmental Services  “ Traffic signals were considered during the early stages of the schools development project but dropped out of the reckoning after we received information that indicated that traffic flow to and from the school would be intermittent in contrast to most other schools.” 

As you can see the only consideration in this matter seems to be traffic volume and takes no account of the safety of local residents or the children coming and going to homes and school using this dangerous junction.

With the aid of our Community Councillors it has been explained to the local authorities that as Dumbreck Road bends at both sides of this junction and with the increased volume of traffic on this road, residents are fearful and anxious when using this junction and accidents will continue to happen.

An Exit Strategy for Trapped Residents

With hundreds of people living in our community and with only one entry and exit point for all the cars, vans and trucks into Dumbreck Court, it is extremely surprising that there are no traffic lights installed at Dumbreck Avenue / Dumbreck Road. 

Getting out of Dumbreck Avenue is becoming extremely difficult and sometimes dangerous owing to the congestion on Dumbreck Road.  Drivers are stopping on the Yellow Box and continually blocking this only exit and this difficulty is compounded with a restricted view of the on-coming traffic when trying to exit and has become a hazard to people living here and as we have recently seen, a number of collisions have taken place here.  This situation is even more worrying now that the school buses are using this dangerous junction taking children to Hazelwood School as this is their only entry and exit point.

I suggest this is an accident waiting to happen and now that there is a new school in our community we can only hope that Mr. Gillespie head of Roads and Traffic for Glasgow City Council’s Land and Environmental Services does not delay too long in considering the proposal put to him from our Dumbreck Community Councillor John Corbett, John Grant Vice Chair of the Dumbreck Tenants Association (DTRA) and Councillor Shaukat Butt, as any delay in this matter may be fatal for this community.

The Choice of Rendering for the
Dumbreck Court Multi's

Mosspark Housing Association  invited all tenants and residents to a Public Meeting on Wednesday the 12th of March 2008 at Hazelwood School.  The purpose of the meeting was to bring all tenants up to date with the progress made by Mosspark Housing, Wates (the Contractor) and your Tenants Association (DTRA) who represented the tenants at every meeting with the contractors. 

The meeting allowed the tenants to choose the final layout of the rendering and now this choice has been made as you can see option 2 was chosen for the rendering of the blocks.

Wates the contractor who will carry out the rendering of the multi's will be on site by August/September of this year

During this time work will begin on Blocks 20 and 40 this will involve the installation of mast climbers after this cladding the Multi's with insulated render will begin, this will make both blocks warmer thus reducing tenants and residents fuel bills, the work will be carried out by a company named ‘WATES’ this company will also supply digital connectivity by installing a new communal receiver on the buildings and new digital television access points in your living  room and a bedroom, tenants will then be able to acquire for themselves a satellite television package.

Wates will also install a new entrance to both blocks, new fire escapes will be fitted and the old one’s removed without loss of access.

Compensation?

I understood 'Compensation' to be something given as an equivalent for some loss?  It seems this is not so, at least for Glasgow City Council Land and Environmental Services, who have informed us that the compensation awarded to Dumbreck Court will not be spent in Dumbreck but in Mosspark?  The money will be used to upgrade the playpark at the junction of Mosspark Drive and Mosspark Boulevard, I understand that this little playarea was due for renovation but it seems GCC LES dont want to pay for it out of their own pockets they wish to grab the meagre amount of money awarded to the children of Dumbreck Court to give them a new play area of their own, as their local playarea and greenspace were removed due to the building of Hazelwood School.

It has been explained to GCC LES the unreasonableness of this dubious decision, quite aside from the fact that the children of Dumbreck Court could rarely use the Mosspark playarea, there being no safe crossing point near the park area, and a number of accidents have already occurred on crossing this road, which the children would have to do to reach this proposed playarea.

An urgent meeting has been scheduled with the Landscape Design Manager Rachel Smith to discuss our objections (not to Mosspark's new playarea who's upgrade is much needed) but to how it's being paid for, and the fact it cannot be used effectively by children at Dumbreck Court!

Attending the meeting along with your tenants association will be our local councillors who have supported us superbly throughout this issue especially Councillor Shaukat Butt who helped arrange this meeting.  Our view is also supported by Dumbreck Community Council and indeed Mosspark Community Council.

The Special General Meeting

A Special meeting was held between Dumbreck Tenants and Residents Association and the manager of South West Shared Services (Bill Pearch) the Special meeting discussed the lack of 12 hour Concierge cover at both Dumbreck and Jura courts. Also in attendance at the public meeting were Mosspark Housing Association and tenants and residents from Jura Court

At the meeting Mr Pearch was presented with a few hundred completed questionnaire's from tenants of both Jura and Dumbreck showing exactly how tenants and residents felt about the situation.

Mr Pearch seemed to be suggesting our 12 hour day shift Concierge service was a luxury the GHA was no longer willing to pay for and that if we wished to keep the service 'that tenants and residents are already paying for' we should be charged extra?

As we tried to explain to Mr Pearch who obviously knows little about the concierge service, was that if this service is reduced to less than 12 hours the sought after houses at Dumbreck and Jura will deteriorate as will the new investment the GHA are putting into these buildings, as well as going against GHA's own policy of building communities our communities will become run down and cease to be viable and to stop this the GHA will then need to upgrade our sites to 24 hour cover costing even more!

The Dumbreck Tenants and Residents Association will not agree to a reduction in service and wish the 12 hour service being paid for by all tenants to remain in operation at Dumbreck Court, of course we would also agree to the buildings being upgraded to 24 hour cover!!!

When Mr Pearch has reviewed the situation with his superiors and held discussions with our LHO he has told us he will contact the Association formally, and we will keep you informed as to developments.

UPDATE:

Here is an extract from a letter From the General Manager South West Shared Services that was sent since the Special Meeting, to our Chairman William McColl, stating "..I just want to make plain that there is no proposal or intention to reduce the service that is currently offered to residents of Dumbreck and Jura Courts, and I had no intention of implying that there were going to be or might be. This is not the case."    And your tenants association will ensure it remains so!

Tenants Association Updates

Your tenants and residents association has attended the quarterly meeting of the Dumbreck Community Council, also attending the meeting where 2 local councillors and our MSP. We sought the assistance of the community council on a number of issues including a Puffin Crossing (Pedestrian User-Friendly Intelligent crossing) we think should be installed on Mosspark Boulevard as we now have a Special needs school within Dumbreck Court, and a crossing like this would allow the pupils and carers to move more freely and securely around their new community.

We have also demonstrated a great and immediate need for traffic lights to be installed at the entrance to Dumbreck Avenue from Dumbreck Road where at the moment, cars and school buses are finding it almost impossible to both enter or leave Dumbreck Court safely without a long delay as the traffic on Dumbreck Road is constant.

You will have noticed a questionnaire has been put through you letter box about the concierge service who keep our community looking good. This questionnaire does not reflect on the concierge service itself, nor even on our local housing office, but on the GHA who have recently increased the workload to this service whom we believe have ceased to be concierge and have now become all but cleaners, and tenants needs are being neglected.

We have had a meeting with the General Manager of Southwest Local Shared Services where he suggested our concierge service could be reduced? Since this meeting he has not provided the extra resources required i.e. temporary extra manpower to clean the additional 42 corridors and landings once cleaned by tenants themselves, that the GHA has now taken responsibility for but they do not wish to supply resourses for? (where's the shared in 'shared' services?)

So return those questionnaires and watch the boards in the foyers for a public meeting to which (Bill Pearch) the GM SWLSS will be present and you can put your views to him personally

Dumbreck Court Tenant Receives GHA Gold Award

Dumbreck Court tenant Fiona Maciver has received the Glasgow Gold Award from the GHA for her caring attitude towards her neighbours and her community. Fiona is the secretary of the tenants and residents association and is being thanked by GHA and tenants alike for her consideration towards her neighbours and her tireless work in helping keep this community a nice place to live.

Fiona has been active in the community for over a year and was responsible for the recent cleanup campaign in the area, she has also recently joined the Management Committee of Mosspark Housing Association representing Dumbreck Court and surrounding areas.

Dumbreck Court Welcomes New Neighbours