Brentford Dock Net

Mr Neil O'Dwyer
Otho Court, Brentford Dock
By hand

Dear Neil,

Your enquiry regarding the heating breakdown on 6 April

Sue Green spoke to me on Monday afternoon regarding your telephone and e-mail enquiries relating to the above and indicated she had spent a considerable amount of time during the course of the day dealing with them.

It was in that context and because, over the months, I have heard a number of Directors commenting on the amount of Pinnacle staff time that you apparently monopolise that I instructed her to invite you to refer your further enquiry about costs to me. In consequence, a series of e-mails on the subject was received by me the following day and I am now, as I indicated on Wednesday evening that I would, responding to your enquiry.

My understanding is that your telephone conversation alone had taken 20-30 minutes. I find it strange that anyone need have taken more than five minutes over such an enquiry. We cannot achieve value for money from our contract if individuals commandeer a disproportionate amount of staff time in this way. While Directors expect Pinnacle to use their best endeavours to deal with individual enquires, this must be subject to a test of reasonableness.

Pinnacle is ultimately responsible to shareholders through the Board and, for this reason, I should be interested to know why you are asking about the cost of the incident on Sunday 6th and about the basis of our contractual arrangement with the engineering company. Taken to its logical conclusion, all shareholders could be asking the cost of each and every transaction which this Company enters into either directly on through Pinnacle on its behalf. I am sure you can understand, as well as I do, that this would make the management task quite dysfunctional and ineffective.

In writing to you at this time, I am mindful that we are coming up to a period of major work on the heating and hot water distribution system. Inevitably, this will be a busy time for Sue and her colleagues who will be both supervising the work and dealing with ancillary tasks such as keeping residents informed as to progress, I hope that, both during that period and beyond, you will respect the need not to distract her from those wider responsibilities to the whole of the estate.

Related to that, I believe the partial and inaccurate information which sometimes appears on your website does a great disservice to the reputation of the estate and to the value of properties here on the Dock. I very much hope you will feel able to review the material which apparently has/is/might in the future appear on the site with that best overall interest of yourself and your fellow-shareholders in mind.

I have in mind, as an example, an article which the local press ran in February relating to the heating difficulties experienced in December (copy enclosed). In the light of that article I intend, now that Dock residents know all that the Board and Pinnacle know about the forthcoming works to the heating and hot water system, to write to the newspaper concerned to indicate it is unprofessional and inappropriate for them to rely on unsubstantiated accounts as they did on that occasion and to ask them, if they have a query in future, to seek a comment from either Pinnacle as our managing agents or from the Board.

On the subject of websites, I hope you will be pleased to know the Board is about to commission establishment of a site and that I expect - following initial set-up - for there to be consultation about the additional features which shareholders and/or residents would be interested to see included.

Yours sincerely,

Charmian Allcock

Copy to all Directors and to Sue Green

Residents' Reactions

1	"She wants to shut you up!" Resident for 10 years
2	"I tried really hard but couldn't find an answer to our question anywhere; why am I not surprised? Not sure how much time was expended to carefully construct the reply; all it needed was 30 secs. Hang on in there!" Resident for 25 years.
3	"Dear oh me! Sorry for asking!" Resident for 25 years
4	"This is the directors' and un-elected chairwoman's way of stone-walling anyone who dares ask any question they don't like. They have the invoices, receipts and accounts. It should take no more than 5 minutes to give the answer, but they will spend hours not to tell us. Collectively, they have become the proverbial brick wall, which has to go somehow. Keep up the good work!" Resident for 17 years
5	"I think it's disgusting that Ms Allcock "instructed" Sue Green to pass your enquiries to her, and then sent you such a dismissive and insulting letter. If it weren't for your website, none of us would have any idea what's going on here, including heating/hot water breakdowns, etc. Has Ms Allcock staged a military coup? Best wishes." Resident for 16 years
6	"She has written a two page letter and STILL hasn't answered the question!" Resident for 17 years

Send your reaction to editor@brentford-dock.net.

"The longer answers to questions are witheld, the more suspicion and rumour grow." Kelvin Brooks in a letter to the Chairman, 23rd September 1988

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