Mayor calls housing association meeting
Councillor to meet officials
A MAYOR has called a showdown meeting with a housing association after being given a litany of complaints from tenants.
THE Mayor of Havant has called a showdown meeting with a housing association after being given a litany of complaints from tenants.
Cllr Diana Patrick will meet officials from Guinness Partnership, which is the landlord for hundreds of tenants in the borough of Havant.
The mayor said she is dismayed by the number of complaints that she has received, which include problems not being fixed, difficulty with making appointments and the wrong tradesmen being sent to do repairs.
‘It’s absolutely appalling,’ said Cllr Patrick. ‘First of all there are delays in getting the first appointments, and then jobs are not completed properly, or tenants are being left with additional problems. It can be six weeks to three months for a first appointment.’
Cllr Patrick said she would chair a discussion between Guinness tenants and staff. She added: ‘I’m hoping to get a list of jobs that I would like an update on when they are done so that these elderly people can have a decent quality of life.’
Two years ago Cllr Patrick carried out a scrutiny of social housing providers in Havant, looking at Guinness and Portsmouth City Council, which also owns many properties in Leigh Park.
She said: ‘The city council came out glowingly in comparison – it had spent enormous amounts of money improving its housing. Guinness had not – and it seems nothing has changed.’
The News reported this week on problems that sheltered housing Guinness tenants at Hart Plain House in Dryden Close, Waterlooville had experienced.
The block’s automatic front door broke in May and no longer locked when it was shut. After two burglaries, when the door finally came off its hinges residents felt obliged to camp out in the foyer overnight to make sure intruders did not get in through the unlocked door – although the door is now fixed.
This week resident Cheryl Anderson criticised Guinness for ‘totally and utterly failing’ tenants, given that complaints about the door stretched back to 2016.
Guinness declined to comment before Tuesday’s meeting, which is at 2pm at Millennium Court in Mill Road, Waterlooville, and any Guinness tenant is welcome to attend. Anyone who would like to pass on comments can do so by emailing diana. patrick@havant.gov.uk