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Cllr Paul Convery |
Tenants’ candid view of cameras: they don’t work
£600 charges for leaseholders dismissed as ‘an absolute con’
VICTIMS of anti-social behaviour are protesting at having to pay up to £600 a year for a concierge security system based in another part of their Barnsbury estate.
Residents of eight-storey Selkirk House on the Bemerton estate say having two CCTV cameras in their block linked to security staff in a building 300 yards away at Orkney House just does not work.
Traditionally, a concierge system is situated at the entrance to a building, with a security officer allowing non-residents access as well as acting as the “eyes and ears” of the block. To save money, Homes for Islington (HfI) – the borough’s housing agency – sited the system in another block.
Now, residents at Selkirk House have launched a petition calling on HfI to install a proper concierge system in the block or drop the charges. They maintain the two CCTV cameras have never resulted in anyone being caught committing a crime.
Leaseholder Robert Horton, 77, and his wife Takae described the concierge service payment as an “absolute con”.
“HfI should be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act in my view,” Mr Horton added. “They are taking money falsely.”
Mr Horton, who plays saxophone in a jazz band, almost had the instrument stolen one night by youths “larking around”.
He added: “All we have is the CCTV cameras but no one ever comes out to give any assistance when we are in trouble. Half the time the cameras don’t work and when they do and we ask for records and pictures we are refused.”
Tenants say that, while police and HfI have improved aspects of anti-social behaviour, vandalism is still a problem. One tenant said: “We get people urinating in the lift. They never find the culprit even though they have a CCTV camera in the lift. You lock yourself in at night and see all the damage in the morning.”
David Renton, who drew up the petition, said: “We have 60 tenants and leaseholders at Selkirk House and over half of them have signed the petition so far. It seems that, rather than having our own concierge, we are subsidising the systems in other parts of the estate. We think that’s very unfair.”
Caledonian ward Labour councillor Paul Convery said: “It’s one of the strange quirks of history that the concierge is restricted to Orkney House and the rest of the estate hardly benefits at all. Selkirk House has concierge facilities, but it is obviously cheaper not to use them. We should have a system where everyone benefits or nobody has to pay. This is the worst of all worlds where everyone pays for a service which only some tenants get.”
Cllr Convery called for the estate’s Tenants Management Organisation, tenants, leaseholders and HfI to get together and come up with a solution.
An HFI spokesman said: “Costs for concierges are part of leaseholder’s annual service charges. In a number of places concierge services cover several blocks with a central concierge managing neighbouring blocks via CCTV. Where this is the case charges are banded so that those blocks which do not have the concierge staff within the building pay a reduced fee. This policy was reviewed recently. We will continue to discuss the charges with leaseholders in Selkirk House.” |
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