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People obviously don't have the time/skills/willingness to take on a bit of responsibility even when it's in their own interests. It's a huge shame
At the last 'consultation' meeting, the Council representative promised to write to all plotholders to advise them of the proposed increase. We're now in March, the rent is due in April.......and I've received precisely nothing from the Council. If I hadn't picked up the news via a local blog, I'd still be none the wiser about what's going on.Time to write a very stiff letter to the Council! Not that they will take any notice. I contacted my local councillor a few weeks ago and had the most pathetic reply which didn't address any of the points I'd made and was about as useful as a chocolate teapot.Sadly there doesn't seem to be a united campaign against the proposals. As I've said before, it's not something I can lead myself due to conflict of interest but I'd have happily helped out if someone else had got something up and running. This really doesn't bode at all well for the Council's suggestion that we all go self-managed: if we can't organise a protest campaign, how on earth are we ever going to run our own sites? People obviously don't have the time/skills/willingness to take on a bit of responsibility even when it's in their own interests. It's a huge shame.
Tell me again, what is it that you want to protest about? Your council are giving you the choice either to self-manage or to pay their full administrative costs. That sounds very fair to me. Rather than complain, why not organise the self-management?
Quote from: Unwashed on March 02, 2011, 14:45:06Tell me again, what is it that you want to protest about? Your council are giving you the choice either to self-manage or to pay their full administrative costs. That sounds very fair to me. Rather than complain, why not organise the self-management?I'm very concerned about the Council's lack of a proper consultation process and the fact that they are introducing quite significant increases without giving plotholders adequate notice. To take the consultation process first. There is absolutely no information on the Council website to indicate that a consultation is in progress or indeed to indicate that they are proposing to increase plot rents. No information has been sent to plotholders either - the only way that I found out about the proposals was via an independent blog. I understand that the Council has some very difficult decisions to make, but they made a commitment to do so only after fair and open consultation. I'm not sure how the 'consultation' process that has taken place can be considered to be either fair or open when a lot of people don't even know that it's taking place! There might have been some very good alternative ideas out there that haven't been fed into the process because people haven't been given the opportunity to contribute.Secondly, the lack of notice really worries me. I can just about afford the proposed increase in rent. But there are plotholders out there on fixed incomes who will be budgeting to pay a certain amount for their rent in April and for whom the significant rent increase will come as a very nasty surprise. I raised this point at the last consultation meeting and the Council grudgingly promised to write to all plotholders to give them some notice about the proposed increase. That hasn’t happened and we’re now less than a month away from the rent due date. The increase might seem ‘easily affordable’ to a Councillor but I can just imagine it causing distress and upset to some plotholders. As Mr Knightly would say, ‘Badly done, Greenwich Council, badly done’.As for organising the self-management, I’ve already made an offer to our Site Rep to explore self management options and to co-ordinate a meeting to discuss it all. That was turned down. I’m not quite sure what to do next. If I push anything through without the support of the Site Rep, that’s only going to start splitting the site into factions – hardly a good start to self management! At the moment I’m doing lots of reading / research on self-management so that I’m well informed; I might then try again in a couple of months’ time to see whether any interest can be generated. And yes, if the majority of the site eventually decides that it wants self management, I’ll happily roll up my sleeves and muck in. I’m not being lazy, just trying to tread carefully. There’s a difference.
Clearly you've not bothered reading everything I've said. As I have said before and say again, I cannot run a campaign against the proposals myself as it would be in breach of my terms of employment.
And my question is again, why do you want to organise a protest when you could organise the self-management?
There is again a lot of spin in the council's presentation of it, so some people, perhaps from Newbury, who haven't actually been to the meetings or involved directly, might read it and get the impression that the council are actually being deliberately helpful, and are offering guidance and support to sites who are thinking about self management. This is far from true and I can't see the councils attitude turning around very quickly.
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Topic: Greenwich Council Increasing Plot Rents (Read 31467 times)
