The anger of Gilbert Square residents toward PCHA housing association over North Harrow estate tells a depressingly familiar tale of indifference, incompetence and financial mismanagement.
The local MP and councillors will bring in the environmental health officer (EHO), who can order remedial work. Legal aid will often cover the employement of a private EHO which can be a better option since many councils depend on housing associations.
This pressure, along with legal action, sometimes gets results and tenants should remember that PCHA, part of the Genesis Housing Group, have a compensation policy to recompense people for their lack of “quiet enjoyment of the property”. Advice is available at www.ifgr.org.uk It is hard to see how a housing association with 10,000 tenants can pay £140,000 in interest payments per day — yes, per day — to fund various allegedly collapsed or collapsing building projects. Only when the regulator steps in and orders a full and open enquiry will there ever be a resolution to the problems of this dysfunctional organisation.
Peter Rutherford, Independent Federation of Genesis Residents
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