Notes from the BRC on June 4th

Three members of the Ben Jonson House Group committee attended the BRC meeting on the 4th June, and a big thank you to them.  Here are notes from the meeting:
___

After some discussion about the rules on who could vote and/or speak on the car park and stores charging proposals, in fact almost all the resident members did speak out querying various aspects of the proposals presented by the Working Party. Only one member of the Committee spoke strongly in support.

As I understood, it was resolved to refer it back to the Working Party to resolve the difficulties and inconsistencies. The problem is that it all needs to be resolved before the next meeting of the Court of Common Council on 21/6/18 and this time scale was much too tight for the WP to achieve a rethink. At the same time, if new stores were to be built the BEO needed to commission them very shortly so they could start to bring in income. BEO would also need to inform residents of changes in charging well in advance.

Points made by CCs were:

1. That the income from car parking and stores in the car parks should be accounted together.
2. That the expense of the CPAs should reflect the fact that they now spend a greater proportion of their time on concierge duties
3. The increased charges may result in fewer people renting and lead to further losses
4. No account had been taken of the mobility needs of older and frailer residents who may well be less able to afford increases and cannot realistically move their cars to cheaper parking elsewhere. There we're equality issues involved.
5. The security committee was not happy with security issues and if non residents were to have a different key as recommended, it would involve more work for the CPAs.
6. The proposed rents were not based on comparable spaces. The CoL run car park on London Wall was less than half the price suggested for Barbican Car Park spaces. Any increase should be based on CPI. Stores charges would be more per sq ft than for a Barbican flat.

Summing up, the new Chair, Michael Hudson, drew attention to the comparison with sum of £800 pa charged to residents by CoL at an adjacent car park, where commercial users pay more. An increase by CPI would be reasonable. Higher charges proposed were likely to lead to losses as people stopped renting. Although advice is to treat car parking and baggage store income separately, it would be more sensible to treat them as one. It was important to include an equality assessment.

Speaking for BEO, Michael Bennett asked for an immediate decision because the Stores policy had expired in March 2018.

When put to the vote the majority were in favour of referring the report back to the Working Party.

NB Mention was made of parking availability at Seraph Court EC1 for £1,300 pa and it was proposed that the Lauderdale proposal be considered.