Update

Invoice Run – Flier Inclusion
Accent will be invoicing for the next quarter service charge in next few weeks for 1st July and have kindly offered to include a CIRG flier for us again. Hopefully it will be as successful as last time, and we will get a lot more people registered.

Window Cleaning
The latest from Accent is that window cleaners and the abseil testing people are working together to ensure outstanding access points are tested and signed off so a full clean can take place. A few discrepancies were thrown up so still in progress. This is dragging on and on, and will be high on the Agenda at the next meeting. Again.

Passive Infrared Lighting
Lighting alterations have been completed throughout the development in the corridors. Accent have taken on board our observations about the stairwells being constantly illuminated, and have requested outline specification and costs for stairwell alterations.

Full Building Inspection
Has been completed and Accent were hoping to receive the report this week.

City Island goes Smoke Free
Like the rest of the country, as of the 1st of July, it will be illegal to smoke in all enclosed areas of City Island, apart from individual apartments. There have been email complaints of people using the stairwells and common areas to smoke, but the truth is its hard to enforce stopping them. Maybe we will have a bit more leverage with the new laws to get them to stop.

No smoking signs for communal areas have been ordered and will be in situ in advance of 1st July ban.

Piazza Decking
Accent have arranged for the decking on the piazza to be re-stained as it was getting a little tired looking.

West Ray Smoke Vent Windows
Work is planned on Westray smoke vent windows - fuse packs have gone on many and need replacing to ensure the windows close. Accent have also arranged for the fuse in the foyer to be un-switched to avoid future tampering as recommended by fire alarm engineers. Accent will then consider things block by block.

Email Problems
When the last email was sent out, there seemed to be a lot of emails got bounced back to me. There were several @fsmail.net addresses, but there were some others as well. I didn’t get time to resend the messages so sorry if you missed out. Check out the blog at http://www.cityislandleeds.blogspot.com/ were most emails get posted straight after sending them. I’ll keep an eye on this email and try and troubleshoot if it happens again.

Wellington Place Progress and The Footbridge

Progress
I have just spoken to Chris Davidson of MEPG, who are developing Wellington Place, which is the huge area/development between Whitehall Road, Wellington Street, City Island and West point. Things are going well, and they envisage starting construction at the end of this year, although there will be some pre construction activities in preparing the site before then.

Initially work will start on two buildings, one residential and one offices, in the south west corner of the plot. This is the corner closest to the bridge over the river on Whitehall Road, by the iron steps up from the canal, and as such is quite close to City Island. The two buildings will be 10 storeys high at the Whitehall Road side, although they slant back to a lower elevation away from the road.

Construction is expected to take around two years for these two blocks. Further development will take place after this so long as there is market demand.

The Footbridge
MEPC have now taken the initiative on the footbridge issue and taken the obligation from the council to actually build the bridge. They have no planning consent as yet, but knowing the attitude of the town planning department within the council towards the footbridge as I do, this will not be an issue. The only other blocker could be that HBG, who are developing Latitude on the Monks Bridge site, provide the ‘pocket park’ as the landing site for the bridge. Chris does not see this being a problem.

This is all good news, however, the bad news is the timeframes, which are likely to be 2 years or more before it is in place.