MEPC - Wellington Place Open Day

Hi,

One of CIRG’s members, Wendy, attended the MEPC open day on Friday, and has kindly captured what she found out in the report below. MEPC are an immediate neighbour of City Island and seem to be very fair and thoughtful, and always inform CIRG of such developments.

Wendy’s report:


I went to the meeting at Wellington Place yesterday and was very impressed. They had invited all the neighbours including Crowne Plaza, PWC, King Sturge, Allianz, Watson Wyatt, Irwin Mitchell and ourselves, to tell us what their plans were in the short and long term, and to ask what we would like to see. The meeting was also attended by Rachel Unsworth of University of Leeds (geography) who is undertaking a project for greening of places. She is being assisted by a 3rd year geography student who is using it for her dissertation.

MEPC can't start building works until they have pre-let enquiries on each block. In the long term, they are proposing a mixed use development of 2.6m sq ft. In the short term, they are looking to make the area smarter and put it on the map. There was a general view that the journey up Whitehall Road from the station is grim and they will make significant improvements. They don't want to just open it up for public car parking (although they could make a lot of money) but will have some increased parking areas for businesses on site. In the short term, they want to clean up the site and scope out the footprint of each building (using coloured gravel or grassed areas) so that the aerial view looks good.

They do have planning approval on a number of units but don't want us to alert the planning dept to their temporary ideas until these have been agreed. Ideas include:

• Five a side pitch
• Tennis courts
• Outdoor ice rink
• Would like outdoor concert facility but there is a conflict with the council on this (I think due to the new city venue)
  

Over the next few weeks, they will crush the gravel mountain and spread this over the area near the marketing suite. they propose to put up a screen on the side of the listed tower so they will have a small outdoor arena with tiered seating.

They will demolish the remaining MFI block in the next few weeks and clear the site before xmas.

A 10' grassed perimiter will be completed along North Street in the near future.

There will be a main square near the tower. As a temporary measure they will gravel this over in coloured gravel.

They will build a main path from this square to Whitehall Road, that will be well lit and tree-lined.

I said my (and therefore CIRG's) objectives are:

• Not too many residential units
• A feeling of security and personal safety achieved by good lighting, open spaces and avoiding places where undesirables can hang out
• A good restaurant
• Something to put the West End on the map, attracting business and financial institutions (as we have started to build given the companies represented)
• Good pedestrian access from City Island into the City

The pocket park will go ahead soon. Thereafter, MEPC will complete the footbridge (which is now their responsibility).

I came away feeling very positive about the plans and looking forward to watching developments. This can only have a positive impact of the price and desirability of City Island.

We will receive a questionnaire shortly asking us for more ideas.

Pedastrian Bridge Becomes a Reality

All,

Some great news that due to some very vigilant campaigning by City Island Residents Groups members, and in particular Sue Ridge, we have significant progress towards making the long awaited pedestrian bridge a reality. Basically, instead of waiting until the end of stage of Monks Bridge development (many years away) for the “Pocket Park”, before the bridge may materialise, this has been brought forward to the end of stage 1 in 2009 sometime.

See below email from Sue for further details. . .

_______________

Dear all

As you may be aware, HBG, the developers of the Monk Bridge site, have brought forward the provision of the Pocket Park from the end of their Phase 4 (the completion of their 8th and final block - many years away!) to the end of Phase 1 (2009).

Once complete, MEPC, the developers of the Wellington Place site, can then provide the much awaited pedestrian bridge across the river, which is presently planned to land onto the Pocket Park next to our perimeter fence.

Please find attached a scan of the location (504 kB) and plan (314 kB) of the Pocket Park. Further information is available from the reception at the Development Department, ref P/08/03199/RM/C.

Should you have any comments to make, please forward them direct to me at sue_cityisle@yahoo.co.uk by the end of Friday 7th November and I will collate and forward to the planning officer.

Many thanks

Sue

CIRG Meeting 23rd October 2008

All,

Below are the original agenda items in black text discussed at last week’s City Island Residents Group meeting with the management company Accent.

Accent
· Things have improved, however still areas for improvement
· Looking for proactive management - not CIRG managing Accent
· Accent refute that this is the case, and say that if you have concerns or issues, you need to raise them with Tony, and then only escalate as an issue if it’s not addressed in a reasonable timescale

· CIRG can to some extent sympathise with this viewpoint, as we are very often the first port of call for residents, and so would ask that if you do have issues you contact Tony the concierge in the first instance, making a note of the date you do so (email maybe best for this, and then only escalate through CIRG as an issue if there is no response

· Tony’s email address is antony.foy@accentgroup.org if you wish, you can copy in CIRG at: cityislandleeds@googlemail.com so that we can ratify dates and timescales should they ever need escalation. City Island management suite phone number is 01132 431380.

Security
· Why and when were the security company changed
· 9th September -- Network Securities were removed due to illegal hours and misuse of company PC.

· Mobile phone contact number still not provided
· Because of the change of security company this was delayed.
· The 24 hour/365’s a year security mobile number is : 07982537985
· A number is also going to be put on management suite door to go through to the head office

· Had two compliments about Security sorting out noise issues – this is a good news story
· Need to get them in the front of people to keep this up
· Action on Accent/Tony to ensure that when called upon, they visit troublesome apartments

· Had another compliment about the patrols being better – the more visible the better
· This will be told to security to keep up as well
· Tony is doing a job list

· Car park gate - people beeping to get out, unacceptable in terms of noise and security
· Tony has told security to log down which vehicle’s are doing this, which will then be correlated to a bay, and then to an apartment for them to pursue
· If this continues to be a problem for residents let Tony/Accent and CIRG know

Misc
· Tony's email / computer - can we get it fixed - often the best way to contact him
· Computer was removed due to misuse, this is now back in place, Tony’s email as above.

· Serious leak above car-park bay 203 (from the water feature); was told they were waiting for special tape to fix it themselves - that was months ago - still not done and concrete pillar next to it is
permanently soaked
· This is the pump house for the pond, it is not a leak, but condensation building up on copper pipes, and there is no way to stop it other than to remove copper piping and replace with plastic
· Action: Accent will do this in the next couple of weeks

· Update on sewage situation
· Sewer pumps have been changed
· Yorkshire water are monitoring them
· Its only tripped out once 5 months, and so the situation is vastly improved, if not solved.

· Re-carpeting of flooded areas (Bonaire 12, and 13 - 5 tiles)
· This is down to insurance mandated a contractor.
· Action: accent to chase

· General recarpetting:
· 8 corridors have been ordered originally (3 months ago)
· 18 more corridors have since been ordered, of which all are almost all done now
All of Westray, 1,2 and 4 of Elba (another 9)
· However, most of the carpet tile damage is down to people taking refuse to the the lifts/bin stores and letting it drip – so please double bag your bin bags when you take them out. We can’t expect to replace tiles due to spills every time they happen, it costs too much.

· Bin Stores
Added extra 6 bins to increase refuse capacity, which are now in place.

Staff
· Tony and Ian - what are they doing? Visibility is important
· This was a line item that was raised by residents via email, and so we raised it in the meeting on your behalf, even though members of CIRG don’t doubt for a moment Tony’s contribution to running City Island, if he wasn’t here, the place would be much the worse for it. If you have particular concerns, please get in touch with CIRG and we will address them, as Tony is without any doubt, City Island’s biggest asset, and if you think otherwise, you don’t understand what he does for this place.

· Ian is continuing maintenance, of the grounds, the car park, and will be starting painting of the car park areas again soon, all under Tony’s guidance.

· What are you doing to retain Tony? He is key to City Island
· Accent assert that Tony is not unhappy. However, he is having to move out of City Island due to personal circumstances – there is an indirect consequence of this, in that Tony will not be able to avail himself to us all out of his work hours, as he has done for the previous 3 three years.
· Also, as above point, Tony prefers to hear about problems from you rather than as an escalation from us.

Gotts Road
· Inappropriate parking –
· Large truck parking by Phase 2 causes obstruction
§ There is some limited yellow line painting occurring in the next few weeks – Mayfair are doing this.

· Resurfacing, yellow lines, we are chasing this but it is not our job -- it is Accents job -- why are they not?
· Accent assert this is not their job - it’s a public road

· Pavement outside management suite – who will sort this out?
· MacLean’s responsibility, not Accents (Note: Accent stressed the point several times that they are not there to improve matters, they have only been hired to manage what is already there)
· Action: Accent to advise us on this

· Electric box at bottom of Bonaire -- half removed
· Action: Tony to address this.

Lifts
· Westray lift breakdown – why was alarm not working?
· Any lift breakdown need to be a priority
Action on Accent: To get a response to Kone -- we need a strong answer on this

· Faroe lift - 4 days out of service
· Accent say that this was due to it breaking down on a Friday night – and so being repaired Monday morning, as it was not an an emergency

Window Cleaning
Accent inform us it was done in August, and that they are done quarterly.
· All windows that Accent should do are now being done as part of this schedule
· Accent only clean the ones that are inaccessible, if you can reach your own windows you need to do them yourself, they are tilt and turn

Litter
· Spade in pond
· Shoes and socks and litter
· These are often one offs or they fall off balconies, generally the litter situation is improved, if it happens over a weekend (which a lot do) they won’t be done until Monday
· Report these to Tony
· Gotts road and surrounding areas -- the main ingress and egress to City Island is Gotts road and the canal -- can we make sure they are kept nice too?
· Accent say no – where would they draw the line


Phase II apartments
· Rented out?
· Sat dish / dodgy looking apartment
· What is going on?
· These are nothing to do with Accent, not managed by them
· The guy with the sat dish is a Mayfair employee
· They can’t sell them, people should not be living there
§ This is nothing to do with Accent, and little CIRG can do either, escalate to Mayfair / council if you feel strongly

Electricity
· Update?
· Are Accent managing the bills or just passing on the increasing costs to us?
· Are Accent managing all costs -- this is one of their core functions
§ Accent enters a new 2 year contract in August on the best price over five suppliers for electricity
§ This is only managed at renewal, every two years, then they get best price again, and so on.
§ Action on Tony: Can we investigate turning off stairwell lights during the day

Maintenance
· To reiterate an above point, Accent and Tony want you to report these to them directly, not via CIRG, and only escalate is not reponse.

· Lights in stairwell of Beringa not working
· Action on Tony to sort out
· Light timers seem to be too quick to go out
· This will be left as they are. However, if you feel strongly let Accent/Tony know, and they will address, however there is a cost involved in doing this, and so it won’t be done until January in order to wait for the new budget
· Tree next to riverside that is falling
· 2 trees by Elba need straightening up and 1 outside Bonaire needs re-nailing.
§ These trees are now strong enough to stand on their own now
§ Gardeners will remove support frames

· Westray foyer lights broken
· Action: Tony to confirm

· Courtyard lights out for a few days??
· New Security company teething problems – now sorted.

· Catalina lift lights
· Sorted

· Bin stores
· Getting jet washed monthly, but missed a month due to new bin company

Extra Agenda items:

· Next FY City Island is due a repaint of all communal areas
o Letter of intent will be issued December
o 5 months due diligence for the job
o Will be completed by May/June

· The carpets in foyers as you come in
o These were put in to stop winter weather being trailed through the building and further destroying carpets
o For all of them (7), they cost £265 a quarter, so about a £1060 a year, or about £2.50 a year per apartment.
o Do we want to keep them?
o Do they give benefit?
o Do they look good?
o Action: All CIRG Members – feedback on this so we can advise Accent of what we all think.

· Changing cleaners in January
o Cost benefit (£4,500 cheaper per annum)

· Changed Companies who move the bins out
o Saved £1000 per annum

· Insurance is going up
o Due to our poor record of claims, our insurance premiums are going up significantly, to the extent that there will be two overspends in budget
o Action: Wendy H (CIRG) to investigate