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We went down this morning to see our friends at the Westgate Tenants Consultative Committee. "Are you going to the informal meeting to meet the candidates for the new head of Housing position," we were asked?

"What meeting," we replied?

It appears that yet again the Housing Department has forgotten to inform us of a "tenant consultation" meeting. So, we got onto the the Director of Community Services, Paul Smith. He was, of course tied up in meetings.

After several more 'phone calls, we established that the Reasearch and Support Officer for Gloucester Housing Services had asked someone in the Gloucester Tenants Federation for a list of tenant groups that should be invited.

As we distanced ourselves from the the Gloucester Tenants Federation some three years ago, our name was probably not included on the list they supplied to the Council!

Also visiting the Westgate TCC when we were there was Councillor Peter Munisamy, who was, of course, "all ears" over the lack of invitation to us!

Whether we will be invited for this meeting at noon is another matter!

Well, at 11.45 am a phone call came from Housing Department to say that there had been an error and that is was an oversight that Kingsholm TCC had not been invited.

What we were told happened was this. Paul Smith, the Director of Community Services, had asked someone in Housing Department to invite tenants groups to this informal meeting liasing with the chair of Tenants Forum for names etc. This was done and, alas, we were left off that list supplied by the chair of the Tenants Forum, who is an employee of the Tenants Federation (hence the slightly differing versions of what had happened)..

Blushes all round! At least the Council admitted a clanger had been dropped! We realise that everyone can and will make mistakes, but when there is a cover-up, our blood boils! So thank you council for admitting a human error - that error being made by a tenant!

We have calmed down a little, but the question remains: why were we yet again "forgotten" when it comes to the distribution of information to tenants groups?

Our chairman was the only person able to get up to the meeting at short notice (thankfully he has a job that is very flexible and a good employer!). He hot-footed it to the Council Chamber and met the candidates for the very senior post.

He has said that out of the half dozen or so candidates, there were a couple from within the Housing Department. He will be feeding back to Paul Smith via email tonight pertinent observations. However, he felt that the standard of the candidates was high and that all appeared to be interested in tenant involvement, empowerment etc.

Now, just when we thought that the youngsters had found some other place to hang out ....

It is now almost 6 pm and we were looking into the "golf driving range" that had been launched by the youngsters on a patch of grass on the edge of the estate ... the ball was being whacked Alvin Street at a brick wall the other side of the road!

The police attended, but, as is ofter the case, the youngsters beat a hasty retreat when they saw the police car approaching. The police were not fooled ... they returned within 20 minutes or so, but again the youngsters dissapeared!

However, the two "coppers" refused to be beaten! Far be it for us to ask questions, but we did learn later that two youngsters were at the "station" helping the police with their inquiries.

Thanks to the two PCs for their perseverance!

Amid the day's dramas, a few decisions had to be made. Our scheduled June meeting is for Wednesday June 9 clashes with the quarterly area police community consultation meeting. Residents from the estate will want to go to the police meeting, and so will ward councillors. So an "executive" decision was taken to postpone the TCC meeting by 24 hours. Everyone appeared happy!

Problems are brewing again in one of the blocks. A young tenant in a flat is becoming noisy again! Affected residents have been asked to fill in noise log forms and a resident broght a completed form for last night's (2am) noise into the office during our Thursday evening "late opening". Log was faxed to Westgate Housing Office.

The entrance door to 11-20 Sherborne Street is again not closing properly. And when it does clos it can be very difficult to open! This was repoted to the Council yesterday. And today the repairs contractor was looking at it!

Hopefully, they will send a repairman round tomorrow to fix it. We have a suspicion that the mechanism is being rendered useless when frustrated visitors cannot gain access and start tugging on the door trying to force entry.

But this would not affect the actual closing mechanism which we suspect could be faulty. It new door, the closer and the mechanism were only installed in March at the cost of some £8,000 per entrance. Did someone mention "value for money"?

The area reporter from the evening paper, Sheila Patel, arrived for the planned chat. She came armed with printouts of pages from this diary! So the chat was mainly about the content of these entries!

Well at least someone is reading these pages .... and hello Sheila!

The chairman did admit to her that what the page lacks was the odd picture. So an appeal has been launched for someone local with a digital camera who might have an hour to spare to snap some "library" pictures for use here!

Any offers?

We are finding out that Front Page Express, the computer program that is used to write this diary, has no spell check! And yes, we know that it should be "current" and not "curent"! This mistake has been spotted on the first two pages of the diary, and has been corrected today. Should we send an email to Bill Gates? Or should we switch to Netscape Navigator?