Planned closure of Liverpool Street bus station

From the City:

Planned closure of Liverpool Street bus station

The bus station will be closed between 8 February and 10 August 2014 to accommodate essential works related to the Crossrail project. Bus routes 11, 23 and 133 will be affected.

Please visit our website:

http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/transport-and-streets/roads-highways-and-pavements/Pages/Streetworks.aspx

If you have any comments on this, if you know of other people who may be interested in receiving this, please let Kay English/Michelle Ross know by e-mail at traffic.management@cityoflondon.gov.uk.

Regards,

Traffic Management [AM]
Department of the Built Environment
City of London
Tel: 020 7332 3553/4, Fax 020 7332 3552

Traffic.Management@Cityoflondon.gov.uk

www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/streetworks

Protocol for recording at public meetings

When the Town Clerk recently spoke at a residents meeting he said that public meetings, such as committee meetings, could be recorded.  I asked the City for the rules and the reply is below.  It seems central government require the City to allow public meetings to be recorded (see this document).  Here is what the City had to say:

The City of London Corporation expects its public meetings to be just that – public - and of course they are reported publicly.  As modern technology has evolved, this reporting naturally includes photography, tape recording and now 'Tweeting' and 'Blogging' etc.  Our practice has been to ask individuals in the public gallery, who are using technology, to do so in respectful way, i.e. not erecting tripods, using disruptive (flash) photography, standing up etc.   Our approach was re-enforced last June in the DCLG guidance (below). 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/207528/Your_councils_cabinet_-_going_to_its_meetings_seeing_how_it_works.pdf  

Occasionally we get requests for use of a tripod, etc,  which can be accommodated by setting aside a 'media' area. Obviously we get notice of this.

Formal written guidance is being re-formulated will shortly be available on the website.

House Group AGM Wed 19 Mar 2014 19:00 – 21:00

A date for your diary:   The Ben Jonson House Group AGM will be held on the evening of 19th March 2014 from 19:00 to 21:00 in the residents meeting room (known as the Lilac Room) which is beneath Seddon House, accessible from the entrance closest to the estate office.

A detailed agenda will be posted after the next Ben Jonson House Group committee meeting, but if there is anything you'd like to see on the agenda please use the email form at the bottom of this page.

The BEO repairs service

From the BEO:

The email address to report repairs is: Barbicanrepairs@cityoflondon.gov.uk

The telephone number is 0207 029 3909.  We deal with all Barbican resident repairs internally & externally.

For podium repairs residents can contact their House Officer.

Kind regards

Fleur McNeil | Customer & Support Services Manager Property Services|CITY OF LONDON

t 020 7332 1637| e 1637

e-mail Barbicanrepairs@cityoflondon.gov.uk

Housing Repairs |t 0800 035 0003

Barbican Repairs|t 0207 029 3909

Studio Weave seats to be removed

From the City's web site (here).  See item 4f:

4f

Barbican Seating - Consultation Report PDF 1 MB

Additional documents:

• Appendix E - Resident Consultation Survey Report , item 4f PDF 356 KB
• Appendix F - User Consultation Survey Report , item 4f PDF 841 KB

Minutes:

The Committee considered a progress report of the Director of the Built Environment in respect of the above project.  In response to questions about Listed Building compliance, officers agreed to check that replacements would be like-for-like.  In respect of possible damage to vents, should seating be removed, members noted that the replacement would be immediate.  Finally, members noted that the seating for the upper level of the Ben Jonson Highwalk was in abeyance, pending completion of the waterproofing project.  

Members noted that all projects have a ‘lessons learnt’ phase at the end; as part of the Gateway 7 report. 

RESOLVED – that, the seating and planters be removed from St Giles Terrace and Ben Jonson Highwalk and relocated to elsewhere in the City, for use by the City community, and seating similar to that present on site be put back before the delivery of the City’s improvement project.

Fraud awareness information

From the BEO:

Dear Residents

The Barbican Police Office have asked that this information is sent out to Barbican residents:

Please be aware that fraudsters are currently targeting victims in the Barbican area and the article below describes methods being used. Remember that a bank will never ask for your PIN number and police officers do not act on behalf of financial institutions to collect or deliver cards. If you believe you have received a genuine call use a different telephone to call your bank using the number on your bank statement.

Bank customers are falling victim to a new and sophisticated type of credit card fraud which has increased threefold since the beginning of the year.

Victims are telephoned by fraudsters and duped into revealing their PIN and then handing over their bank card to a courier in this new form of crime, which has seen more than £750,000 taken from customers since the beginning of the year.

The scam involves a person being called by someone claiming to be from their bank. They are told that their debit or credit card needs collecting as it needs replacing following fraud on their account.

The caller often suggests that the person hangs up and calls the bank back if they want to ensure the call is genuine, but stays on the line, tricking the person into thinking they're calling their bank. The criminal will then ask the person to key in their PIN number, before sending a courier to collect the card. The victim is told the card is going to the bank to be changed but it is actually delivered to the fraudster to use along with the PIN obtained during the scam.

DCI Paul Bernard, head of the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit, said: "Many of us feel confident that we can spot fraudsters but this type of crime can be sophisticated and could happen to anyone. While we have seen an increase in this type of fraud, we know collectively we can stamp it out. "If you become a victim of this type of crime, you should contact your bank in the first instance. If you have friends or relatives who you feel may be vulnerable to this, please help them to be more aware of the potential risks and what to look out for. Remember, if you are the innocent victim of card fraud you will not suffer any financial loss."
More than £1.5m has now been lost to this crime, with the same amount £750,000 stolen in the first four months of 2012 that was stolen during the whole of 2011.

The Payments Council found in a survey of account holders that more than three quarters feel confident that they would be able to spot a fraudulent telephone banking call. However, after hearing how the card fraud phone scam works, over half of the 4,000 people surveyed were surprised by how sophisticated it was, one third worried they were more vulnerable than they thought and four fifths felt that anyone could be a potential victim of the fraud.

Mr Bernard said that customers should follow some simple tips to avoid being a victim. These include making sure you can hear the dial tone when you call your bank, and never handing over your card. Your bank or the police will never ring you and tell you that they are coming to your home to pick up your card, so never hand it over to anyone who comes to collect it.

He added that your bank will never ask you to authorise anything by entering your PIN into the telephone. The only times that you should enter your PIN are at a cash machine or when you use a shop's chip and PIN machine.

Christine Phillips
Wards Constable

With regards

Barbican Estate Office

Fwd: City of London Consultations with residents

Two documents were sent out with the following message:

• City Residents Consultation
• A guide to consulting in schemes in and around the Barbican Estate

This email is sent on behalf of the Chairs of the Barbican Association and the Residents' Consultation Committee:

City of London Consultations with residents

From the Chairs of the Barbican Association and the Residents' Consultation Committee:

As you may have read in the most recent BA Newsletter, the City is in the process of revising its consultation processes with residents, and formalising this into a protocol and a series of steps it intends to follow when consulting with us. In the attached letter we wish to introduce the process to you, and explain the principal changes, as we see them. Also attached is a sheet prepared by the City that sets out the consultation protocol in diagrammatic form. We would like to hear what you think about these proposals, so we can pass these on to the City. 

Please take a moment to read through both attachments, and then let us know of any comments you have to make. We have set up a short feedback survey to make it quick and easy to respond, which you can access from this link: http://eSurv.org?u=BAconsult13 

Please provide any feedback to us no later than the 23rd January 2014. 

We wish all Barbican residents a happy and peaceful 2014. 

Jane Smith, Chair, Barbican Association

Tim Macer, Chairman, Barbican Residents' Consultation Committee

Meet the Town Clerk: Tue 20th Jan

From the BA:

Meet the Town Clerk – Reminder
Dear Barbican Resident

Just a reminder about the "Meet the Town Clerk" meeting tomorrow: Tuesday 21 January at 6pm in the City of London School of Girls.

John Barradell is coming specifically to talk to Barbican residents about his role in the City and to listen to residents' views and answer their questions.
All residents are welcome – and there will also be an informal opportunity to talk to John over drinks afterwards.

Best wishes

Jane Smith
Chair, Barbican Association

Mr. Scargill and the Barbican

The BBC have an article (here) about a past resident of the Barbican (described as "prestigious"*), one Mr. Arthur Scargill, and his experiences trying to buy a flat here:

des res

* The Barbican Estate, not Arthur

Cleansing not-spot beside Cote and SC64

The paved area outside the level 02 exit from Ben Jonson House to Whitecross St. is often used as a public ashtray and toilet. Responsibility for keeping this area clean falls to the City of London cleansing department. On their web site (here) the cleansing department ask people to let them know "If you notice rubbish or litter on the street", and even provide a smart phone app for reporting issues.

Or you can call the cleansing department on 020 7606 3030.  Please do call them if you see anything like this:

Fines of up to £2,500 for this

Planning applications this week

This week's planning applications, again thanks to the BA planning person:

3 Cloth Street, at the Aldersgate end, is to change from office to short-let serviced apartments (13/01170/FULL). The building will get about half a storey higher, but will still be only five storeys.

The Shakespeare, the pub in Crescent House on Goswell Road, is to have new signage and light fittings on the outside (13/01224/FULL, 13/01225/LBC). This looks to have minimal impact on the Barbican.

Film School: Substantial rent free period

News about the London Film School's move to beneath Ben Jonson and Breton house comes out in dribs and drabs.

The latest snippet is that the film school will have a 'substantial rent free period' when they move in.  This is to help them with the costs of converting the existing space here in the Barbican.  My guess is that this is viewed by the City as an investment in their "Cultural Quarter" idea.

Price increase in the cost of ASSA keys

From the BEO:

Dear Residents
Please note there has been a price increase in the cost of ASSA keys for the Barbican flats.

The cost of the keys is now £9.30 - the first increase in 2 years.

When ordering keys, can residents please note that only Long Leaseholders are allowed to order keys unless we have had prior authority. Payment is to be made by cash or cheque at the time of ordering.  Delivery time is up to ten working days and the BEO Reception team will contact you when the keys are ready for collection.  Identification, such as a passport or driving license, will be needed when collecting the keys.

With regards

Barbican Estate Office

Planning applications this week

The person with the planning portfolio for the Barbican keeps an eye on planning applications which may affect residents, and send out an update each week. Here is this week's batch:

The roof extension to St Bartholomew House (12/01145/FULL & 12/01146/LBC) is a single storey, and far enough away that I don't think it need concern us.

The extension to the refuse facility below Willoughby House on Moor Lane (13/01179/LBC) looks very acceptable to me: an exact match to the existing store.

The Girls School plan to extend the gym by creating a new mezzanine floor over the end of the swimming pool that is currently double-height (13/01197/FULL & 13/01198/LBC). The plans appear not to affect the external appearance of the building, but I think we should consider commenting (objecting?) on hours of use, light spillage, plant noise... anything else? The BA and House Groups are meeting the School on 30 January, but we may need to submit comments before this, if the application timetable remains as at present.

Not one for the BA, but residents may be interested in the application from Save Britain's Heritage to widen the permitted uses of Smithfield's General Market Building to a "hub of independent food, creative and cultural enterprise" (13/01151/FULL).

Secondary glazing in Lauderdale Tower (13/01231/LBC) needs no comment.

An extensive internal rearrangement in a maisonette at the top of the south-east corner of Mountjoy House (13/01212/LBC) also involves replacing a top-floor fixed window with a sliding window. The design and access statement (enclosed) says: "Listed Building Consent is sought to replace a fixed glazed panel at 7th floor level with a sliding glass panel to exactly match other sliding glass panels used throughout the Barbican. This change to the fenestration is set back behind the large roof terrace and will have no impact on the appearance of the building."

Schroders moving in next door

Schroders, the asset management firm, are moving into the new One London Wall building in 2017.

From City AM Issue 2,036,  Mon. 6th Jan 2014

The cinemas lake continues to grow

If this lake is not a problem for the cinemas can we have the water supply to the flower beds restored please?

The growing lake

Big puddle over the cinemas

The sound insulation in the cinemas uses nested boxes of plasterboard.  If the plasterboard gets wet and soggy the so-called-box-in box system breaks down, and sound could then break out of the cinemas into flats above.  Sound experts hired by the BA while the cinemas were being built told us that they had been called out to a soggy box-in-box in another cinema complex in the UK, so this is more than just a theoretical risk.

The City were so worried about water dripping onto their plasterboard box-in-box structure that when the cinemas were being built they chose to turn off the automatic sprinkler system in the flower beds, which now have to be watered by hand*.  You can see one of the flower beds in this photo behind the puddle.

And of course we don't have an automated system measuring sound breakout from the cinemas because the City effectively blocked having one, even though we won that as a planning condition for the cinemas at the planning committee.

All this makes this particular puddle very worrying.  If a moist flower bed is a risk, what about this much water?

A new cinema experience:  just add water

* Much to the frustration of the gardeners who have to spend their time hand watering the beds around Ben Jonson & Breton houses rather than getting on with more useful work.

Mystery drip

There is quite a bit of water dripping from the lower north facing balcony shown here.  See the wet area on the highwalk and look above; you can see quite a large wet area and even falling drips of water.  I couldn't work out where the water was coming from, but it looks like it's been happening for a while as there is permanent stain where the water is.

An old drip?

Yet another lake

Another big puddle has formed under Ben Jonson House ... and we're still waiting for the drainage plan we were promised months ago.

Another blocked drain

Thanks to Tom for the photo.  Let me know by the email form (at the bottom of the page) if you have a photo which you think others may be interested in.