Service Yard Carbon Reduction Works

From the BEO:

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City of London Carbon Reduction Works

We have been informed that the site storage unit is to be delivered 12 November and temporary barriers or ‘traffic’ cones will be placed across the area (shown by dotted lines in the image) where the storage container will be placed. This is to prevent vehicles parking in the space allocated for the storage unit before it is delivered.

The site welfare, storage container and skip locations, once in position will remain in position until the end of the project, which is scheduled to complete March '22.

Please download the newsletter with information regarding the upcoming City of London Carbon reduction Works.

If you are unsure of any activities being undertaken by the team, wish to raise any questions, or report concerns please contact PSDS Helpline: carbonreductionproject@cityoflondon.gov.uk

More on the Cote smells

Here is an update on the matter of the Cote smells.  First a note from the chair of the Ben Jonson House Group followed by a letter from Cote.  All positive stuff.

To respond to the house group please use the form at the bottom of this page, or send an email to ben.jonson.hg@gmail.com.

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Cote Survey

Thank you to all those who responded to the survey about odours and noise from Cote. Of those who responded, about a third have been adversely affected. We also know that a number of Breton House residents have complained about these issues.

Together with the chair of the Breton House Group I met with Mara, the new supervisor at Cote, a couple of weeks ago. She is aware of the problems, seemed sincerely sympathetic and has, within the last month or so, initiated a number of actions designed to overcome the odours.

It would, therefore, be helpful to know whether you have noticed any improvement. If so, please let us know

We will be keeping a close eye on the situation with a view to finding permanent solutions.

Chair, Ben Jonson House Group

... and a letter from the current Cote manager Mara ...

Thank you very much for coming to see me last week. I am sorry for the delay emailing you. I was waiting for our property manager to send me some information.

Regarding the parking units, he confirmed that the only things we have in the basement car park are the condensers for the air con units and the walk in fridge, nothing related to the extract system. 

Both the air supply and extract should switch off on the time clock. If there is noise in the basement after service then it is probably the walk in fridge condenser, assuming no one left the air-con switched on accidentally overnight, but this will not make much noise. 

I can confirm as well we have stopped using the odour neutraliser as per the residents request and reduced the speed of the fan to see if it makes any difference. It would be great to have some feedback from the residents on this and to know if they have noticed any improvements during the last couple of weeks.

All our filters have been serviced and cleaned on the 8th of January by Chapmans Ventilation. 

We also discussed the cleaning of the back wall in the rear area of the restaurant. I would like to confirm it has been completed today by Fluid Cleaning. 

Please let me know if I can help with any further information. I do hope we can find a way to improve the issues with the smell and I can guarantee I will do everything I can to help with this matter. 

Best Regards,

3 Hour Power Outage on 19th April

The BEO tells us that there will be power disruptions across the estate between 16th and 20th of April, with Ben Jonson House being affected on 19th April between 10:00 and 16:00, with a maximum outage of 3 hours, they think.

Click to read the Ben Jonson House notice

Here is the notice from the BEO including specific notices for each of the affected blocks:
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Interruption to Electricity Supply
Please be informed that between 16 - 20 April

there will be a power outage in Ben Jonson House, Cromwell Towers, John Trundle Court, Mountjoy House and Willoughby House.

This is to enable the Electric Vehicle Charging Points to be brought into service.

For more details on which flats are affected, timings and further information please click on the relative links above.

We thank you in advance for your cooperation in this regard.

BMH - Diesel Generator for marketing suite

From the chair of the Breton House Group:

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Taylor Wimpey which is planning to build its 99-flat monstrosity, aka The Denizen, has applied for planning permission to build a two-storey marketing suite at the corner of Viscount Street and Brackley Street. 

Although the suite will still be there in the next decade, the applicant intends to use a diesel generator for electricity, instead of connecting to the mains supply. When asked at the last Construction Liaison Group meeting if it would use a mains supply instead, the answer was a blunt "no".

City Corporation's Environmental Health Officer, Hazel Austin, raised no concern with the generator polluting the air. But she was concerned with noise pollution, requiring the use of the generator to be limited to 10.00 to 18.00, although, according to Taylor Wimpey, the weekend use will be 10.00 to 16.00.

I raised the air pollution concerns with Hazel and she replied:

"Having confirmed with the site, there currently is no mains power available. I have however been informed, once mains power is available, the generator will be removed from site. At this time there is no timescales for this."

Details of the planning application are here. Please object by demanding the suite is connected to mains electricity before it is used for the first time. Not only will mains connection avoid pollution, it will also eliminate the noise from the generator.

Click to read the whole notice

Our CPAs

CPA is an abbreviation of Car Park Attendant, but our Breton & Ben Jonson CPAs do much more for us than just look after the car park.   Our CPAs also act as our building concierge, looking after visitors and also looking after the flood of Internet driven parcels (a deluge at Christmas time!).  Our CPAs also look after our security, they walk the building to help keep it secure and in good order, and they are also there if we need help with a noisy neighbour or if we need emergency assistance.

From time to time the City floats the idea of saving money by removing our CPAs, but each time this has happened the City has been reminded how highly they are valued.

Currently our CPAs are:

Paul Nixon
Dinesh Pereira
Israel Lawson
Peter Jones

If you need to call them:

Office - 0207 029 3938
Mobile - 0778 537 1832

Noisy Sherlock Crew

With thanks to the Breton House chair ...
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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.


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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

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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

Window Cleaning Schedule 2017

I spotted the new window cleaning schedule on a notice board, so I have scanned it for the blog and put the dates on the calendar.

I have asked the BEO to send me a copy of this kind of thing so I can put it here on the blog right away, but to no avail.  I have also suggested they might set up their own blog for this kind of thing, again no.  Oh, well, here is the one from the notice board which has the spelling mistakes corrected by a helpful resident:

An annotated schedule

Stolen Bikes - Secure your bike

Bicycles have been stolen from the Breton House (/Ben Jonson House) car park.

The most recent theft was on 22nd April.  There were a three bikes stolen last year.

If you keep a bike in the car park please make sure lock it securely, or even better use one of the bike lockers.  If you would like to rent a bike locker please contact the BEO.

There is some CCTV coverage in the car parks but it is primarily designed to protect the Deutsche Bank cars so only incidentally covers bike parking.

Breton House Spring Newsletter

For your reading pleasure, and for a different perspective on issues in our area, here is the spring edition of the Breton House newsletter:

Click image to read the newsletter