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Grenfell Tower Fire

The Grenfell Tower fire is a tragic disaster and our hearts go out to everyone involved – those who have lost their lives, those who have lost their family, friends and loved ones, those who have lost their homes, their possessions and their valued memories.   And our admiration and respect goes to all those who headed into the blazing inferno to save lives at such risk to their own.     As social housing residents we feel a strong sense of solidarity with the Grenfell Tower residents, and we share their grief and anger. We can breathe a sigh of relief that we have no tower blocks on Kennington Park Estate. But our fellow Hyde residents on the Grantham Road Estate in Stockwell and our close neighbours on the Ashmole Estate do, as do many other estates across Lambeth. The open design of our Estate means that the risks we…

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Ovalhouse call out for performers!

Ovalhouse Creative Youth Call out for performers for LIVE NIGHT! at Ovalhouse     PERFORMERS WANTED! Come and perform at LIVE NIGHT! on Friday 30 June at Ovalhouse. Ovalhouse Creative Youth are looking for singers, songwriters, musicians, poets, spoken word artists and performers who want a platform for their voice. Our theme for this LIVE NIGHT! is DREAMS & NIGHTMARES: wild, wonderful and frightening. Creative young minds exploring our subconscious. You can create original work for LIVE NIGHT! or perform an existing piece. This call out is open to everyone aged 16 – 25 from Lambeth. If you’re interested in performing, please email Rachel at creative.youth@ovalhouse.com with the following details: Your name and age ● A description of yourself in 50 words ● Two examples of your work, e.g. Youtube / Soundcloud links ● Tell us how your work responds to the theme DREAMS & NIGHTMARES ● Tell us if…

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News from the Hyde Foundation

A new youth outreach project is starting on Kennington Park Estate in June, supported by The Hyde Foundation.   Three experienced outreach workers, Julian, Martine and Junior, will be on the Estate three times a week in the evenings for the next 6 months. The project aims to engage young people who are out on the Estate, and support them to access local provision and other positive opportunities. If residents want to meet outreach workers or arrange for them to work with particular young people living on the estate contact martine@utcs.org.uk. Youth workers will all have ID badges when working on the estate.

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Local communities need local community centres!

Kennington Park Community Centre – at the heart of our Estate – has been run by Hyde Housing since it took over the Estate from Lambeth Council in 2005. Hyde recently decided to hand the running of its community centres across London to other organisations and, in the case of KPCC, to explore developing the space it occupies to build private flats.   The Tenants & Residents Association, along with our neighbours supporting Hyde’s Stockwell Centre, launched an immediate campaign to Save KPCC, which has been most successful in raising public awareness of its value. We have had a lot of support from local people, both Estate residents and those who live and work in the wider neighbourhood, as well as local businesses and organisations – for which we thank you. In parallel to our campaign we have been talking to Hyde about how to keep the Centre open and…

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TA meeting – 26 April 2017

The next TRA meeting is on Wednesday 26 April 2017 at 7pm in the Community Centre. The agenda is below: A G E N D A Welcome and Introductions Apologies for absence Minutes of the last meeting of the Association held on 22 February 2017: For approval and matters arising (here) Housing management and estate management issues. Reports and queries from tenants and leaseholders for the attention of HSH management Kennington Park Estate Community Centre Report from TA Executive Committee Tenants’ Association work on scrutiny of service charges Report from recent Estate Inspections Report from Oval Ward Councillors including report on gas holder site Latest information about the Housing and Planning Act Report on activities elsewhere in Hyde Any other business  

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Service charges from 1 April 2017 – important update

As a direct result of the Tenants Association’s complaints, Hyde is sending out revised rent and service charge bills to residents of Kennington Park Estate.   Not only did Hyde include charges for a non-existent service (CCTV monitoring – see item below) but, for the second year running, they failed to include any charges for caretaking. We had to point this out to them. We don’t know what effect these two very large mistakes will have on our individual bills but we are sure we are not alone in wanting to have something approaching accuracy in what we have to pay for the coming year. We have pressed Hyde to ensure all consequential changes to Direct Debits and Housing Benefit are properly and quickly processed. We still have many questions about the actual and estimated service charges and Hyde acknowledges that there is much still to be resolved. Residents will…

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Rents and service charges from 1 April 2017

Hyde is currently sending out notifications of our rents and service charges for the coming financial year. The Government has instructed Housing Associations like Hyde to reduce rents by 1% (roughly £1 per week) but there is no such restriction on service charges. The charges we have to pay from 1 April are estimates and we advise everyone to look at the figures very closely. Check them against last year’s bill if you still have it. Hyde should have sent out statements of how much was actually spent on services during 2015-16 before Christmas; these figures are meant to form the basis of the estimates for the coming year. These statements are now several months overdue. The Tenants Association has made it clear that we find this unacceptable, particularly since we submitted comments on the invoices for the Estate at the beginning of November. The contract to monitor the CCTV…

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