Clamping in the carparks

Hi all,

Please find below a copy of a letter I sent to Simon at the Management office. Please all send him your issues re: clamping also and who knows, they may be able to actually start loooking after residents that get clamped due to accident etc.

His email address is simon.hill@countyestate.co.uk

Attention: Simon.Hill@countyestate.co.uk
Re: Clamping at Plough Lane Developments

Hi Simon,

My name is Alli Price and I live at Flat 3 Lawrie House at the Plough Lane Developments.

I spoke with Sabrina today at your office re: the clamping and she said I should email you.

I would like to register a complaint about the clamping as I feel that the residents in this development are being treated unfairly and haven’t been looked after at all in the agreement between management and clamping company.

The clamping, as far as I can discern, exists to penalise people that park illegally in the carparks. However, I know of several residents, including myself that have also been charged £120 to have their cars released for reasons other than illegal parking i.e. not having a permit yet, the permit slipping off the dashboard.

I understand that the clamping company have to clamp cars they believe are parked illegally, however, I believe that once a resident has proven that they are parked legally (but it was an accident or mistake) that we should be charged a lesser call-out fee. It seems ridiculous to me that we are being charged the same amount as people parking illegally – when we are in our correct car parks.

Secondly, the fee of £120 is exorbitant. Since being clamped I have been looking at clamping fees all over London and haven’t seen anything over £50. £120 is so much money and a lesser fee of even £50 would be a deterrent.

Please be aware that I will be printing this letter for all the residents’ information and will be encouraging them to contact you with their own grievances. I’m sorry if this will be an imposition to you but I am sure once you put yourself in our shoes – being charged £120 for being parked in your own car spot – you will understand our anger and frustration. I only hope something can be renegotiated with the clamping company as people are currently tearing down the clamping signs in the carpark, a possible indication of things to come if this situation continues.

Yours sincerely,

Alli Price

I think your absolutely right Alli. I too have been caught out by the clampers, with the permit falling off the dashboard in my case.

One of my concerns is that they wouldnt even tell me the appeal process until after I had paid my £120. And then the appeal process involves sending a letter and stamped addressed envelope. They will reply within 21 days. Not really good enough I dont think - I doubt they even read the appeal letters.

Dear all

You may recall attending a meeting in January held at Bassett House to discuss the lack of service provided by the management company, which at the time was County Estates Management (CEM). At this meeting volunteers from each block formed a group whose aim would be to liaise between the Management Company and residents to ensure we receive the service we are paying for.

We are now emailing you to update you on our progress since then. You should have received a questionnaire in your mailbox asking you for your feedback on the service provided and also share your other concerns. Many thanks to those of you that completed this, this really helped to us understand what the main areas of concern and also confirm that there is a high level of dissatisfaction (copy of results attached). Our next step is to meet with the Management Company and give them the feedback and also insist that they start doing the work that we are paying them for! This has proved quite a challenge as CEM were replaced by Consort Property Management (CPM) who have had a high turnover of staff working on this development. We do now have a meeting in place for next week with CPM.

In the meantime, we have been in regular contact with both Thames Valley and L&Q to get their backing and assistance in helping us force CPM to act. They are aware of all the issues we are facing and are trying to work together as a bigger force to try and get things done.

The top issues which we will be pushing for immediate action on are as follows:

External Doors

* Doors to blocks and car parks are continuously being broken which is allowing non-residents free access which has resulted result in:
o Cars being broken into
o Graffiti in car parks and inside blocks
o Post/deliveries being stolen from the post rooms
o Items being stolen from outside peoples flat doors
o Homeless man gaining access to blocks at night to sleep despite being regularly moved on - human faeces found!
o Non-residents found hanging around in blocks and in some cases causing damage

Bike Thefts

* There have been 50+ bikes stolen from the bike stores over the past 6 months. In the interim we need all the codes reset and going forward we need them to find a better solution for us to store our bikes.

CCTV/Security

* We need some form of security to protect us against some of the issues above whether this be CCTV or a night security guard

Obviously there are the day to day issues such as replacing lights, better cleaning of the communal areas and a re-painting of the interior walls which we will also be talking to them about.

We are doing all we can to try and get CPM to start taking our complaints seriously. In the interim, if we could ask you to be vigilant with who you let in and out of the block and also just take an extra second to check the door has closed properly behind you - this all helps until we can get the doors working as they should.

If you have any other concerns then please feel free to email any one of the email addresses below:

lawriehousewimbledon@gmail.com

bassetthousewimbledon@gmail.com

reedhousewimbledon@gmail.com

corkhousewimbledon@gmail.com

Kind Regards

Tamara, Alex, Pierre, Sam, Tes, Bronwyn, Jon, Julian & Stuart