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We learned today of the sudden death of a tenant who lived in Sebert Street, Mrs. Bolton. Though not strictly living on our estate, Mrs Bolton has come to us on a handful of occasions for assistance with problems she was experiencing with repairs needed in her home.
Our sympathy is extended to her family.
Another day of meetings! It started at 10 am in the Council Offices with a combined Housing Investment Programme and Response Repairs working parties pow-wow. And it ended with the TCC meeting in the evening. By the time that the meeting had ended and we had our usual chin-wag and coffee with our ward councillors, it was 10 pm.
But we did have the afternoon off!
The chairman (Andrew Harley) and treasurer (Phil Mayo) attended the morning meeting. And the feedback was to the effect that those very senior councillors and officers, who are now called "directors" had extended the response repairs "contract" (service level agreement) with Gloucester City Services which is due to end in August 2000 by seven month until March 2001.
While there was a certain amount of agreement that this was a sensible decision as the council put into place all its "best value" initiatives, the views of the tenants at the meeting - and the Gloucester Tenants Federation - was that the council had arrived at the decision without so much as a word of consultation with Tenants Forum, let alone tenant groups such as the Response Repairs Working Party!
Naturally, tenant groups are now looking for the "hidden agenda"!
Another point that our group made to the meeting was that we were still waiting to receive the details of the response repairs service level agreement. Officers continued to insist that it was too "weighty" to let us have a copy - and anyway the "variations" would not be in it.
We were further informed that there was not a copy in existence which had all the amendments included!
REALLY?
Sounds a little odd that! No master document anywhere that contained all the variations? Probably the wrong sort of leaves had fallen on the Service Level Agreement ... or maybe, snow? Or maybe there is something in this Service Level Agreement that the Council does not want mere tenants to know!
The Gloucester Tenants Federation pointed out that they were promised a copy, but nothing had so far arrived!
When it came to the monitoring reports, officers had to admit that there was a problem with the computer system! Not only the system in Housing Department, but also the computer system at Gloucester City Services.
Mind you, in the number crunching game, the two computers never agreed and there was a wide difference in the percentage of completions within target between the two computer system.
But this time both computers failed! So there was a certain measure of "agreement". Both figuratively produced an identical piece of blank paper!
The problems with the computer system appears to us to be getting serious! Later in the day, the Westgate Housing Office had to admit that it could not provide some information because "the computer system is down again"!
We are told that it is all to do with the Y2K bug (millennium bug) and the work that has to be done to make sure that there is no "melt-down" at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59.9 seconds on December 31, 1999.
But we now suspect that the Y2K Bug is being used like the wrong sort of snow .. or even the leaves.
As they say, to make a mistake is easy, but to really foul up you need a computer!
And talking about computers, why can't Bill Gates provide a spell check on his Front Page Express? If he can get one on his Word 97 and Excel programmes (so should that be "programs"?), then why not on Front Page Express?
All the "typos" on yesterday's Diary have been corrected.
We were almost as bad as the "Gaudrian". But ... we have just thought. The "real" reason for those typos was because our computer has caught the Y2K Bug - well, it is infectious and has already infected the computer in the Housing Department!
Hazel Gray duly arrived this morning to take over as head honcho at the Westgate Housing Office. Up to now, we have wrongly referred to her as Hazel Grey.
She did, however, assure us that she was English, but with an American-spelled name!
Hazel attended the meeting tonight of the TCC. The minutes will be posted tomorrow.
It was a good meeting with some interesting thoughts coming out, especially in the area of anti social behaviour!
The post-TCC meeting "chat" with our three ward councillors was constructive. They have managed to get information on the rights of access over private land granted to what is now TeleWest, the cable television and telephone company.
When the company was called United Artists, they wired up the estate and in doing so dug a trench and laid a main trunk cable along a stretch of non-highway land that is tarmaced. This is land infront of the row of ten "town houses" on the estate - three of the houses still in council ownership and the other seven now in private hands following the "right to buy".
It appears that the cable company failed to get permission from the owners to dig up private land and lay the cable!
Just a quick reminder that we DO know about the problems with the guest book. The problem is being worked on, but we suspect that the snag is at TenZero, the company that provides the guestbook at no cost to us. Some of you are Emailing us instead - and thanks for the comments. We are told by TenZero that there is a massive problem and they are busy re-writing programmes (or should that be programs?).