Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Glendales working overtime

The Audit Commission are in town (see previous post).


That is probably why our estate is not looking so bad at the moment. They're here today – both the Audit Commission AND Glendales. A guy from Glendales told a resident that they don't know what they're supposed to be doing since they don't have any Estate Plans to tell them which areas they're supposed to cut and work on.

We were told in March at a Leaseholder Improvement Group Meeting: "Good news! A contract has been signed with Glendales to take over Grounds Maintenance. Residents will be able to view Estate Plans online on the Lewisham Homes website next month to see where they are supposed to be working on your estate!" Hurrah!

Nothing to view on the website to date though. It also appears Glendales have nothing to look at either. Anyway, they've been pruning the bushes like crazy this week.

They were last here just over a week before, on 17th June, cutting grass – to within an inch of its life, since only two weeks before on 3rd June they had cut the same grass (although they left out the Holden lawn that time).

That was just a week after an Estate Inspection on 27th May when we showed the inspector the height of the grass.


FRONT OF HOLDEN 25th May 2010: Normally they would cut around the spring daffodils, but in this picture above you can see these daffs are well past their sell-by date. They have completely died.


BACK OF HOLDEN 25th May 2010: the grass has reached a height of 17 inches (also measured by the inspector on 27th May) – we understand the maximum height should be 2.5 inches. Glendales' new contract allows them to work on the basis of 'need' rather than frequency, ie, when grass gets to a certain height, it must be cut.

The last time Glendales were here before that was 8th March when they did a bit of leaf blowing...The Glendales guys love their tools, but the leaf blowing machine is a pointless waste of time much of the time when it is windy. I've seen them blowing a load of leaves to one area and then the wind blow it back and then they do it again.

The boys justified their use this time because the daffs were coming through quite high and a rake would be less clever, though actually they went on about the 0-60mph effect of the leaf blowing machine more than anything else. As I said, the Glendales team love their powertools and can't wait to use 'em, especially at 8am in the morning so that they can wake up and spite the lazy doleys on the estate – and the shift workers they never conceived of.

There were a helluva lot of leaves. But then the team hadn't been seen for months.


We still don't have specifications or estate plans, but it appears, neither do Glendales.
(At least we have dated pictures, which, to their shame, neither Glendales, nor Lewisham Homes have)

1 comment:

  1. It's all starting to look tatty again now the Audit Commission have left. Well tatty. The council ain't picking up the Household Waste and the caretakers aren't bothering at all now...

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