Present were David Bentham and Wendy Graham in person and Mark Walsh and Jodie Glover by Zoom. Dave Ridings apologised
David B reported that the RSM now has £425,000 in the bank, arrears are falling.
He and Mark then reported on progress with the necessary building works. We are waiting for quotes for the repairs on the leaked apartments and then the prices for the steel work.
Fire regulations were made more stringent after Grenfell and with the increased knowledge from other recent fire, and now apartments must be compartmentalised to stop the spread of fire behind walls, through the structure by closing off gaps. This is proving to be a slow business because all high rise buildings are having to do work, either to comply or to show that they are compliant. This involves, inter alia, cutting holes in the plaster in volunteer flats and looking. So far we have done ten apartments but the company doing the work is insisting on at least 20 in total. (Wendy asked if we already knew we would have work to do after ten, but apparently we have to do 20) Hopefully this will be completed by August 15, and we will know soon after what works are required. Bringing the Mill up to fire code is a legal requirement.
The Board affirmed its awareness that leaseholders will be feeling uneasy about all these expenses and we agreed to put several options on timescales and payments to you once we have full information.
Finally the board discussed its own membership. At the moment we are limited to five members so there can be no more members (this limit was imposed some years ago). . We agreed to investigate how to increase the membership limit to seven We further felt that prospective candidates must be in good financial standing and display a collegiate attitude before we would consider co-opting onto the board.
We resolved to meet again when we have the various quotes in hand, and to meanwhile reflect on ways of canvassing leaseholders as to preferences on paying and timescales. We will in the meantime investigate ways to protect residents’ parcels which are being stolen.
