July Estate Issues Minutes now available here

Decent Homes

Following correspondence with Mark Field MP, we have sent a letter to the MD of Guinness Trust asking for firm commitments on Decent Homes. See the letter here.

Job Vacancies

Waste Watch have vacancies on the estate for Sustainabilty Advisers, deadline 28th June. Here are links to: job description & application form

June Estate Issues minutes now available here

GT say Security Doors will cost between £4.28 to £8.79 a week

We have asked GT to look at ways of minimising weekly charges. You can see a copy of the information that they have sent us here or see "Security Doors" for more details: e.g. If spread over 20 years the cost could be less than £1.00 a week (depending on options and payment details).

Service Charge Reduced by £2.40 a week

See "Service Charge Campaign" for more detail

April draft Estate Issues minutes now available here
April Volunteer Committee (Adopt bank account) minutes here

Volunteer Committee Elects Officers

Election of named officers under §30 of AERA constitution:
Correspondence Secretary: Andrew Coombes
Treasurer: Roger Jones

Full minutes here

Successful Inaugural General Meeting

Constitution Adopted: see the minutes here

Want to get involved?

You can download a printable (pdf) volunteer application from here

Inaugural General Meeting

Venue: City of London Portsoken Community Centre, Aldgate Estate, Mansell Street, London E1 map
Date: Tuesday March 23rd
Time: 7pm – 7.30pm

Doors open at 6.15pm for networking and refreshments and the venue will remain open for further refreshments after the business meeting.

Background to the Inaugural General Meeting

The Aldgate Estate is situated in Portsoken Ward in the City of London and is run by the Guinness Trust Housing Association. It comprises just short of 200 flats in two blocks, Guinness Court and Iveagh Court.

For a number of years prior to late 2008, the estate had no functioning residents’ association and was very poorly represented. Faced with a number of significant and pressing issues around service and maintenance on the estate and a proposed local development, a number of residents got together to run estates meetings for all residents and to provide a route for communication with the Guinness Trust (the estate’s landlord) and the local authorities.

Since then, there have been regular and reasonably well attended estates issues meetings and a successful social evening attended by around 100 residents as well as a good number of City of London, training, arts and community bodies. The group now want to formalise arrangements into a properly constituted body. On 23 March 2010, the estate residents will hold an Inaugural General Meeting to adopt a constitution and elect a Volunteers Committee.

The estate is home to a very diverse community in a quite unique location. Although part of probably the UK’s wealthiest local authority, the area’s 2007 index of multiple deprivation score puts it in the UK’s bottom 23%. Its separate scores for income deprivation, employment deprivation and barriers to services are all even lower than the multiple index.

Although there are a number of organisations interested in addressing community and exclusion issues on the estate, its communities are notoriously difficult to reach and much provision has been a matter of institutional push rather than community pull.

Whilst the Residents’ Association’s primary focus has been the very tangible issue of the living environment, its organisers are keen to provide a single point of contact into the estate for any external organisation seeking to work with or reach the community.

We hope that this evening will serve as an opportunity for local authority and community organisations to build links with the residents and community on the estate.