Here is an update about Bernard Morgan House from the chair of Breton House. If you think you might be affected by the works or the replacement building you may wish to take action.
Do remember that it is easy to write to your common councilors for help too
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Bernard Morgan House
Taylor Wimpey is applying to the Planning and Transportation Committee on 28 February to determine whether prior approval is required for the method of demolition of the existing building. The actual planning application is now due to go to the Committee on 2 May, so Bernard Morgan House could be demolished before its replacement is approved.
A prior approval request is highly unusual in the City of London. However, if the Committee consents, Taylor Wimpey will start demolition on 3 March, having commenced erection of scaffolding on 27 February - before the meeting.
The application reference is 17/00088/DPAR.The City’s online planning portal is http://www.planning2.cityoflondon.gov.uk/online-applications/.
Details of the application and comments made to date can be seen on the portal. The proposed Method Statement for the demolition contains a number of errors and omissions and there are no drawings showing the positioning of scaffolding, some of which will block pavements, nor details of how 50 tonne excavators will be safely operated next to Jewin Welsh Church and its Hatching Dragons Nursery.
Online comments on the application can also be made there. Otherwise comments should be sent to the Case Officer, Catherine Linford, Development Division, Department of the Built Environment, City of London. PO Box 270, Guildhall EC2P 2EJ.
If you intend objecting, please comment. Anyone wanting assistance or advice on what to say, please contact me on 020 7374 4277.
Fred Rodgers, Chair, Breton House Group
Sunday 19 February 2017
Wednesday 8 February 2017
Lease Extensions
A resident asks:
I am the leaseholder of a Ben Jonson flat and I've been receiving letters from Leasehold Solutions offering to help me to extend my lease (as far as I can work out).
Is this something I should get involved with or ignore? Are a number of leaseholders in the block doing this and does it make sense to join them?
There is discussion on the topic of lease extensions from time to time on Barbican Talk, so have a look at the most recent of those. For example, this thread.
My understanding is that it is a good idea to keep your lease above 80 years outstanding because valuations can go down significantly with less than 80 years of the lease to go, and also the cost of extending the lease goes up as the number of years remaining go down.
My understanding is that it is a good idea to keep your lease above 80 years outstanding because valuations can go down significantly with less than 80 years of the lease to go, and also the cost of extending the lease goes up as the number of years remaining go down.
As you will see from the Barbican Talk discussions, many people have worked through the process by themselves without help from a lawyer or a specialist firm. You may need specialist help if you have a mortgage because sometimes the lender insists on a lawyer being used.
As for Leasehold Solutions, I'd never heard of them before. I suspect they are a specialist firm fishing for business. Perhaps they could help if their fees are reasonable and you have little spare time. I suggest reading the Barbican Talk threads and shopping around.
Tuesday 7 February 2017
Measuring Noise
Last year the City published a draft Noise Strategy. I sent in my thoughts on the document which you can read below (fairly wordy, sorry).
The key point I try to make is that objective measurement is critical to understanding the soundscape ("soundscape" being the cool term for the sounds in the environment around us). All too often sound measures are expressed using measures like "dB(A)" and "dB LAeq" without anyone explaining what these terms mean ... and they may not mean as much as officialdom would like you to think: In this Wikpedia article on decibels R Hickling is cited as saying that "Decibels are a useless affectation, which is impeding the development of noise control as an engineering discipline".
Here are my comments on the Noise Strategy including my attempt to explain why dB(A), dB LAeq and friends are insufficient and even misleading (and please, if you are an expert in this field please do let me know if I am misrepresenting anything here):
____
I have read through Section 5 - pp46-60, and (briefly!) through the Mayor of London's "Sounder City" paper.
The key, I think, is the text quoted in the City document taken from the Mayor's document, in particular that what we need " include noise mapping, measurement ..." (p47). We do need subjective and aspirational goals, but we need those goals expressed as objective measurable targets too. BTW, the Policy 78 they mention is on page 213 of the Mayor of London's document.
A lovely parallel is drawn in the City document (p47 & 48) between a landscape (cityscape?) and a soundscape. Both are complex multi-faceted things, both are measurable in many ways - for example a landscape has spatial dimensions but also colour and brightness and reflectivity. A soundscape also has spatial dimensions but instead of color and brightness it has sound frequency and volume. Taking this parallel just a bit further, imagine a landscape representation which muted colour (i.e. light frequency) and presented everything as a grayscale. The equivalent to this omission of colour in a soundscape would be to mute the information about sound frequency, and that's exactly what the dBA and dBC (the most common measures of sound levels) do, they are both averages of sound across all frequencies in just the same way that grey mushes together colors (light frequencies).
In context ... the recent question of plant noise being 10% below background noise and yet still being a nuisance is explained by thinking of sound as colour. Background sound is measured in dB(A) and give us the equivalent of a certain brightness of grey. Now think of plant producing a low noise. Low frequency light is red, so think of the new noisy plant machinery being as a fairly bright red light which is *on average* 10% dimmer than the current background grey, but of course the new bright red light stands out ... because it is *much* brighter than the other red sources in the background.
I see the document mentions "dB LAeq" (p50). This measure is even worse than dBA and dBC because it averages over frequencies *and* time. To go back to the light analogy, imagine a disco light that flashed lots of different colours. dBA and dBC would show the light as just grey, but you could still see it flashing. Now think about the disco light flashes, sometimes the light is dim and sometimes suddenly really bright, well "dB LAeq" would average the flashes over time and show a steady even brightness. How would that reflect the reality of standing near a disco light? It would not, of course. How can a "dB LAeq" measure reflect the reality of being on the heathrow flightpath or near a noisy pub? It would not, of course.
Perhaps to labor the point: Imagine the difference between watching the film in the cinema with all the richness of colour and light (bright daylight scenes, dark nighttime scenes). OK, now run that film though a "dB LAeq" filter and you end up watching a boring sheet of grey at a constant or very slowly varying brightness.
In our soundscape do we wish to perceive a grey slowly changing mush of average grey noise, or do we want to measure at greater resolution so we can pick out the loud crashed, the annoying plant noise, the high pitched squeal etc etc? dBA, dBC and dB LAeq are fine if you don't mind losing all the detail - and people making noise would be very happy to have the detail of their noise lost in a grey mush. I don't think we want to lose the detail.
(BTW, There is nothing wrong with having dBA, dBA and dB LAeq *as well* since these can be handy for measuring changes over longer periods, like months or years.)
The CITY SOUNDSCAPE MANAGEMENT PROCEDURE on page 51 says the right kind of things, but the "Establish unambiguous soundscape objectives" need to be expressed in objective terms, even if they are informally expressed as things like "Must be able to have a conversation at certain locations/places without having to shout.". For example, how loudly can the participants of the imagined conversation speak before this is deemed shouting? How good are their ears? How old are they? Instead how about something like "A tone generator at 10 meters distance must be detectable across all human audible frequencies using <a measurement device> with a difference from background at each 1/8th octave of n dB (dB at this resolution is fine :-)) ..." ... or something like that.
Just to repeat, there is nothing at all wrong with the suggested subjective measures on p52 & p52, they just need to be backed up by objective measures too.
p54. "Bell Happenings". Love it :-)
OK - so - those are my initial thoughts :-)
The absolute key to this establishing objective goals (largely missing from the document) on the basis of subjective aspirations (of which there are plenty in the document, and mostly very fine too), and then measuring the soundscape properly. The ideal would be a network of fixed monitoring instruments across the which could gather sound information continuously providing a living map of the soundscape.
We should introduce the idea of measuring sound traveling through buildings, and through the fabric of buildings (e.g. the concrete of the Barbican)
Here are my comments on the Noise Strategy including my attempt to explain why dB(A), dB LAeq and friends are insufficient and even misleading (and please, if you are an expert in this field please do let me know if I am misrepresenting anything here):
____
I have read through Section 5 - pp46-60, and (briefly!) through the Mayor of London's "Sounder City" paper.
The key, I think, is the text quoted in the City document taken from the Mayor's document, in particular that what we need " include noise mapping, measurement ..." (p47). We do need subjective and aspirational goals, but we need those goals expressed as objective measurable targets too. BTW, the Policy 78 they mention is on page 213 of the Mayor of London's document.
A lovely parallel is drawn in the City document (p47 & 48) between a landscape (cityscape?) and a soundscape. Both are complex multi-faceted things, both are measurable in many ways - for example a landscape has spatial dimensions but also colour and brightness and reflectivity. A soundscape also has spatial dimensions but instead of color and brightness it has sound frequency and volume. Taking this parallel just a bit further, imagine a landscape representation which muted colour (i.e. light frequency) and presented everything as a grayscale. The equivalent to this omission of colour in a soundscape would be to mute the information about sound frequency, and that's exactly what the dBA and dBC (the most common measures of sound levels) do, they are both averages of sound across all frequencies in just the same way that grey mushes together colors (light frequencies).
In context ... the recent question of plant noise being 10% below background noise and yet still being a nuisance is explained by thinking of sound as colour. Background sound is measured in dB(A) and give us the equivalent of a certain brightness of grey. Now think of plant producing a low noise. Low frequency light is red, so think of the new noisy plant machinery being as a fairly bright red light which is *on average* 10% dimmer than the current background grey, but of course the new bright red light stands out ... because it is *much* brighter than the other red sources in the background.
I see the document mentions "dB LAeq" (p50). This measure is even worse than dBA and dBC because it averages over frequencies *and* time. To go back to the light analogy, imagine a disco light that flashed lots of different colours. dBA and dBC would show the light as just grey, but you could still see it flashing. Now think about the disco light flashes, sometimes the light is dim and sometimes suddenly really bright, well "dB LAeq" would average the flashes over time and show a steady even brightness. How would that reflect the reality of standing near a disco light? It would not, of course. How can a "dB LAeq" measure reflect the reality of being on the heathrow flightpath or near a noisy pub? It would not, of course.
Perhaps to labor the point: Imagine the difference between watching the film in the cinema with all the richness of colour and light (bright daylight scenes, dark nighttime scenes). OK, now run that film though a "dB LAeq" filter and you end up watching a boring sheet of grey at a constant or very slowly varying brightness.
In our soundscape do we wish to perceive a grey slowly changing mush of average grey noise, or do we want to measure at greater resolution so we can pick out the loud crashed, the annoying plant noise, the high pitched squeal etc etc? dBA, dBC and dB LAeq are fine if you don't mind losing all the detail - and people making noise would be very happy to have the detail of their noise lost in a grey mush. I don't think we want to lose the detail.
(BTW, There is nothing wrong with having dBA, dBA and dB LAeq *as well* since these can be handy for measuring changes over longer periods, like months or years.)
The CITY SOUNDSCAPE MANAGEMENT PROCEDURE on page 51 says the right kind of things, but the "Establish unambiguous soundscape objectives" need to be expressed in objective terms, even if they are informally expressed as things like "Must be able to have a conversation at certain locations/places without having to shout.". For example, how loudly can the participants of the imagined conversation speak before this is deemed shouting? How good are their ears? How old are they? Instead how about something like "A tone generator at 10 meters distance must be detectable across all human audible frequencies using <a measurement device> with a difference from background at each 1/8th octave of n dB (dB at this resolution is fine :-)) ..." ... or something like that.
Just to repeat, there is nothing at all wrong with the suggested subjective measures on p52 & p52, they just need to be backed up by objective measures too.
p54. "Bell Happenings". Love it :-)
OK - so - those are my initial thoughts :-)
The absolute key to this establishing objective goals (largely missing from the document) on the basis of subjective aspirations (of which there are plenty in the document, and mostly very fine too), and then measuring the soundscape properly. The ideal would be a network of fixed monitoring instruments across the which could gather sound information continuously providing a living map of the soundscape.
We should introduce the idea of measuring sound traveling through buildings, and through the fabric of buildings (e.g. the concrete of the Barbican)
Monday 6 February 2017
BMH - Light impact report
A report has been produced regarding the light impact of the new building proposed by Taylor Wimpey to replace Bernard Morgan House. Here is the letter from the City notifying the house group of the report:
And here is the report:
 |
| Click to expand |
And here is the report:
 |
| Click to read the whole report |
Even though the proposed building would be a massive blot on the view, the light impact on Ben Jonson House is not significant enough to be deemed a problem. The impact on the buildings immediately adjacent to the proposed building is very significant, and the City is getting lots of comments.
Do email Catherine Linford (Catherine.Linford@cityoflondon.gov.uk) if you do have any comments or objections. Particularly if you feel that your home will be affected by the proposed Taylor Wimpey building.
Sunday 5 February 2017
BMH Demolition Application
After a long silence there has been a sudden flurry of activity regarding Bernard Morgan House.
If you are Facebook savvy your can keep up with events on the Save Bernard Morgan House Facebook page (direct link) or on Barbican Talk in the Local Discussion section.
My understanding, in summary, is that Taylor Wimpey submitted a distinct planning application to demolish Bernard Morgan House in advance of the main planning application being considered by the planning committee. The main planning application was penciled in for May (with one reason for this, I hear, being to avoid the planning application happening before the 2017 election of common councilors).
A number of objections to the demolition were submitted, not least because once the existing building is gone the option for some alternatives (such as Studio City) is eliminated, but see the Facebook group to understand the range of issues raised about the demolition.
The latest news is that Taylor Wimpey may be withdrawing their demolition-only application in order to move their main planning application to the February planning meeting.
It's all go.
Don't forget, it is election year for your common councillors. They are your representative in the City legislature so contact them if you have questions about the process and to ask how they stand on Bernard Morgan house.
If you are Facebook savvy your can keep up with events on the Save Bernard Morgan House Facebook page (direct link) or on Barbican Talk in the Local Discussion section.
My understanding, in summary, is that Taylor Wimpey submitted a distinct planning application to demolish Bernard Morgan House in advance of the main planning application being considered by the planning committee. The main planning application was penciled in for May (with one reason for this, I hear, being to avoid the planning application happening before the 2017 election of common councilors).
A number of objections to the demolition were submitted, not least because once the existing building is gone the option for some alternatives (such as Studio City) is eliminated, but see the Facebook group to understand the range of issues raised about the demolition.
The latest news is that Taylor Wimpey may be withdrawing their demolition-only application in order to move their main planning application to the February planning meeting.
It's all go.
Don't forget, it is election year for your common councillors. They are your representative in the City legislature so contact them if you have questions about the process and to ask how they stand on Bernard Morgan house.
Roof Surveys
From the BEO:
____
This is to advise residents that on Wednesday 8 February Langley will be surveying the roofs of 6 blocks which they issued warranties for. These blocks are:
____
This is to advise residents that on Wednesday 8 February Langley will be surveying the roofs of 6 blocks which they issued warranties for. These blocks are:
- Ben Jonson House
- John Trundle Court
- Bryer Court
- Breton House
- Mountjoy House
- Bunyan Court
Please expect to see people on the roof of these blocks on this date.
Writing to your common councilors is easy
Here in the City of London our local elected council representatives are known Common Councilmen. The City is divided into wards, with each ward having between 2 and 10 Common Councilmen. Ben Jonson House sits in the Cripplegate ward, and we have 9 councillors who represent us on the Court of Common Council which is the City of London's primary decision-making body. The next elections for our Common Councilmen will be held in March 2017.
There is a handy website website called WriteToThem which shows who your elected representative are (including your MP, MEP and local councilors). It will also let you send a letter (message) to individual Common Councilmen, or to all of them at once.
There is a handy website website called WriteToThem which shows who your elected representative are (including your MP, MEP and local councilors). It will also let you send a letter (message) to individual Common Councilmen, or to all of them at once.
So, if you have questions for your Common Councilmen in this election year, here is how to ask them using WriteToThem:
 |
| Click to go to this first page, Oh, and USE YOUR OWN POSTCODE! |
 |
| The list of people to contact. Click to enlarge |
From the list of people to contact you can choose just one, or you can click on the "Write to all your councillors" link (which I have put in a red box in the image above) to send the same message to all councillors in one go.
The next step is to type in your message and information about who you are (in a form below the message box):
Then press the "Preview and send" button at the bottom of the message page. Make sure you give a valid email address because the next step will be an email being sent to you to confirm that you really want to send the message.
The email will have the title "Please confirm ...." (the exact title depends on who you sent the message to). In the email there is a link ... click on that link and the message is sent.
Then sit back and wait for the responses.
The next step is to type in your message and information about who you are (in a form below the message box):
 |
| The message box looks like this |
Then press the "Preview and send" button at the bottom of the message page. Make sure you give a valid email address because the next step will be an email being sent to you to confirm that you really want to send the message.
The email will have the title "Please confirm ...." (the exact title depends on who you sent the message to). In the email there is a link ... click on that link and the message is sent.
Then sit back and wait for the responses.
Saturday 4 February 2017
BMH: Studio City
I came across an alternative design for the Bernard Morgan House site:
It may not be to everyone's taste, but it looks like a much better use of the site than the massive Taylor Wimpey proposal.
Download the TheStudio.City proposal and have a look.
 |
| Click to see more details |
Download the TheStudio.City proposal and have a look.
Roofs & Overcharges Saga - Nov RCC
The saga of the leaking roofs, poor administration and opaque accounting goes on.
In the latest episode, a report is made to the RCC in November 2016:
... in which the RCC is asked to note the progress made by the [latest] Working Party.
In point 11 the City also admit to other administrative issues: "there has been no system in place to systematically record roof repairs and their causes", so they don't even know what they themselves have done, or why.
The report then says "members of this Working Party are satisfied that systems are now in place to ..." make the world a better place. Lovely. But no real details of what will be done.
In the latest episode, a report is made to the RCC in November 2016:
 |
| Click to read the whole RCC document pack |
You really should read the document for yourselves, but here are some things which struck me:
Note the entry in Appendix A regarding the warranties for the roof works:
 |
| Ben Jonson House Warranties still active ... in theory |
Good news for Ben Jonson House, except that we understand that the warranties have been invalidated because the BEO tried to fix the leaks themselves without notifying the guarantor. And indeed the City seems to admit this in point 8 of the report.
The report then seems to go on to cost-justify the actions which were taken in the past (even though they don't have a record, remember), concluding that, actually, by doing everything wrong they ended up saving us money. I may be paraphrasing.
But surely it was either wrong to get the warranties in the first place, or it was wrong to mis-administer them. It can't be both, can it?
Point 21 then says " see if anything can be done economically and sensibly to reinstate the warranties that have not, as yet, expired". But why bother if the above revisionist cost-justification is reasonable? ... this leaves me confused.
The house group will now try to get a description of what the BEO actually plans to do. Wish us luck.
The mighty powers of an RTA
In the "public document pack" for the 2016-11-28 meeting of the RCC the status of the recognised tenants association (RTA) was reported. See agenda item 5 on pages 23-26. In this section we see that the Ben Jonson House Group is indeed recognised, we also see listed the set of powers RTAs have:
- Ask for a summary of costs incurred by their landlord in connection with matters for which they are being required to pay a service charge;
- Inspect the relevant accounts and receipts;
- Be sent a copy of estimates obtained by the landlord for intended work to their properties;
- Propose names of contractors for inclusion in any tender list when the landlord wishes to carry out major works;
- Ask for a written summary of the insurance cover and inspect the policy;
- Be consulted about the appointment and re-appointment of the agent managing the services.
Concrete Testing Report
I have been reminded by a resident that I did not publish the results of the concrete investigations which happened early last year.
The results of the tests take the form of a report from Broomfield Consultants. The report is dated July 2016 but was not released until December 2016.
 |
| Click to read the report |
The analysis of the results show limited intrusion of chlorides and carbonation with no threat of significant deterioration due to reinforcement corrosion in the next 50 years or more. The limited problems are consistent with the age and exposure of the building.
It can therefore be concluded that once the repairs are carried out as listed in the Martech Bill of Quantities for Ben Jonson House, then the building should remain relatively defect free with no systemic risk of chloride or carbonation induced corrosion.
...
The building can be considered to be in good condition for its age and the exposure conditions.
Why no proxy voting for the house group?
As you may know, in the past we have struggled to hold AGM meetings which are quorate, i.e. have >15% of members present. Even the relatively well attended 2016 AGM was only a few percent over the line.
It has been suggested that we could make things easier for ourselves by accepting proxy votes.
We took some advice about that from the City and were told that to be able to use proxies “there needs to be a provision within your own RTA’s Constitution. If not, you can take a decision at your next meeting as to whether to include it”.
It has been suggested that we could make things easier for ourselves by accepting proxy votes.
We took some advice about that from the City and were told that to be able to use proxies “there needs to be a provision within your own RTA’s Constitution. If not, you can take a decision at your next meeting as to whether to include it”.
My understanding is that to change the constitution, for example to allow proxy votes, we would need to hold a general meeting and have over 50% of all members voting in favor of the change at the meeting.
... but of course we have a problem getting even 15% of members to attend general meetings.
I'm reminded of a song.
The other option we have is to dissolve the current house group and to form a new one with a new constitution. If anyone is up for managing that process, please do get in touch.
In the mean time we will continue to offer bribes for attendance (wine & mince pies) at the Christmas AGM meetings, which seems to work.
Wednesday 1 February 2017
Noisy Sherlock Crew
With thanks to the Breton House chair ...
____
The chair of Breton writes:
Environmental Health have received a number of complaints about early morning noise outside Exhibition Hall 2. It seems that, at very late notice, the hall was let out to a film company making a Sherlock Holmes film in either Shoreditch or Clerkenwell. The hall is being used by the cast and the letting is due to finish tomorrow.
Written response from Graz (omitting parts directed to a specific individual):
Please accept my sincere apologies for the disturbance you have experienced from the recent activities in the Exhibition Halls.
____
The chair of Breton writes:
Environmental Health have received a number of complaints about early morning noise outside Exhibition Hall 2. It seems that, at very late notice, the hall was let out to a film company making a Sherlock Holmes film in either Shoreditch or Clerkenwell. The hall is being used by the cast and the letting is due to finish tomorrow.
Graz Kalenik, General Manager, Barbican Exhibition Centre, has been made aware there was supposed to be a restriction on loading and unloading before 7.00 am and we did not expect to be disturbed at 4.30 am, as this morning.
Graz explained that everyone had been asked to keep their noise down. Unfortunately, the sound of even normal conversation travels in the middle of the night and their had been no indication that residents would be disturbed.
Residents had already been disturbed in the early hours by power window washing at 1 Golden Lane on Saturday and Sunday and the Boris Bike van man at 01.40, also on Sunday. The noise from Exhibition Hall 2 on both Monday and Tuesday meant Graz got the brunt of the complaints.
If we are going to be disturbed before 7.00 am and the disturbance is essential, then we ought, at least, have advance notice.
___
Graz explained that everyone had been asked to keep their noise down. Unfortunately, the sound of even normal conversation travels in the middle of the night and their had been no indication that residents would be disturbed.
Residents had already been disturbed in the early hours by power window washing at 1 Golden Lane on Saturday and Sunday and the Boris Bike van man at 01.40, also on Sunday. The noise from Exhibition Hall 2 on both Monday and Tuesday meant Graz got the brunt of the complaints.
If we are going to be disturbed before 7.00 am and the disturbance is essential, then we ought, at least, have advance notice.
___
Written response from Graz (omitting parts directed to a specific individual):
Please accept my sincere apologies for the disturbance you have experienced from the recent activities in the Exhibition Halls.
Sony Pictures are filming “Holmes and Watson” in Clerkenwell Green this week and they have contracted Exhibition Hall 2 for catering, costumes and make-up for approx. 200 extras.
I had a number of meetings with the Sony Pictures team and found them very professional and used to working within residential areas so I was happy to take on this event in the knowledge that it would be professionally run and would not cause us any problems. Indeed, by Monday afternoon I was pleased not to have received any comments/complaints and I had assumed we did a good job.
At around 1.30pm yesterday (Tues 31 January) you informed me that you had been woken up at 4.30am by our activities. I had been on duty since 3.30am monitoring the get-in at all times and believed that we had ensured that all noise had been kept to an absolute minimum.
I made an assurance to you that we would make an extra effort this morning (Wednesday 1 Feb) and ensure that we keep the sound to an absolute minimum, once again stressing the importance to be mindful of the close proximity of residents.
Following our conversation, I made some further enquiries and discovered that yesterday morning, 3 security officers (recruited by the client) had talked loudly for about 10 minutes during their “hand-over” early in the morning. They have apologised and promised to either sit in the car or come inside the Hall during this morning “hand-over”. To further reduce risk of disturbance, we also arranged a small change to the route between the Car Park in Beech Street and Exhibition Hall 2 entrance and last night I made additional signage requesting staff and extras to be mindful of our residents and keep the noise down.
I’m sure you will be pleased to know that this morning was the last day of filming in Clerkenwell and tomorrow Exhibition Hall 2 will be used for break-down, which will start at 8.00am.
Once again, please accept my apologies for the disturbances that you experienced.
Kind regards,
Graz Kalenik
General Manager Ex Halls
Barbican
____
I had a number of meetings with the Sony Pictures team and found them very professional and used to working within residential areas so I was happy to take on this event in the knowledge that it would be professionally run and would not cause us any problems. Indeed, by Monday afternoon I was pleased not to have received any comments/complaints and I had assumed we did a good job.
At around 1.30pm yesterday (Tues 31 January) you informed me that you had been woken up at 4.30am by our activities. I had been on duty since 3.30am monitoring the get-in at all times and believed that we had ensured that all noise had been kept to an absolute minimum.
I made an assurance to you that we would make an extra effort this morning (Wednesday 1 Feb) and ensure that we keep the sound to an absolute minimum, once again stressing the importance to be mindful of the close proximity of residents.
Following our conversation, I made some further enquiries and discovered that yesterday morning, 3 security officers (recruited by the client) had talked loudly for about 10 minutes during their “hand-over” early in the morning. They have apologised and promised to either sit in the car or come inside the Hall during this morning “hand-over”. To further reduce risk of disturbance, we also arranged a small change to the route between the Car Park in Beech Street and Exhibition Hall 2 entrance and last night I made additional signage requesting staff and extras to be mindful of our residents and keep the noise down.
I’m sure you will be pleased to know that this morning was the last day of filming in Clerkenwell and tomorrow Exhibition Hall 2 will be used for break-down, which will start at 8.00am.
Once again, please accept my apologies for the disturbances that you experienced.
Kind regards,
Graz Kalenik
General Manager Ex Halls
Barbican
____
The Breton House chair wrote back to Graz to accept the apology, say thanks for the detailed response and explain that an email response from Environmental Services referred to “similar complaints” being raised, suggesting more than one complaint
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