At the beginning of last week, Cllr Geoff Brodie (formerly Lumley) got in touch with concerns about how the residents of Pan Meadows are being treated by the Pan Management Community Interest Company (see below).
OnTheWight immediately reached out to the agent, ERMC, with specific questions. The MD, Sarah Chatwin replied explaining that she was on leave that week and responded in brief (see below).
The Property Management Team Leader at ERMC also advised that our email was being looked at and was “sure you will be receiving a response shortly”. At time of publishing, the response has still not arrived. Ed
The following is from Cllr Brodie, in his own words.
Once again the way in which the Pan Meadows’ residents are treated is being called into question by their local IW Councillor Geoff Brodie.
The development has had a chequered history since the first residents moved in late 2011.
50+% hike in estate service charges
The latest issue has arisen around the 50% plus hike in the estate service charges levied by the so-called Pan Management Community Interest Company (Pan Manco) on the 400 plus resident households.
In March owner-occupier residents started to receive service charge bills a year late for 2016-17 that showed an increase of over 50% on previous charges. This increase was passed onto the Sovereign Housing Association tenants via their landlord’s rental charges.
Residents angered by increase
These increases coincided with Cllr Brodie door-knocking throughout the estate as part of his fourth successful re-election campaign in Newport East. An election when he secured over 70% of the vote.
Many residents were very annoyed by this service charge increase and Cllr Brodie received many emails and phone calls about the matter. Some residents had also identified from the accounts submitted to Companies House that Pan Manco’s reserves had doubled in a year to more than £80,000.
Cllr Brodie undertook to take this up with Pan Manco, but some three months later he is little further forward in his battle with the managing agents for Pan Manco and the directors of the company from Barratts, Sovereign and the IW Council.
Agent refused to enagage
To begin with the agents refused to deal with him, probably because he has been effective at embarrassing Pan Manco over their lack of accountability to the residents they are supposed to be acting in the interests of.
When a few residents then took up their concerns directly with Pan Manco and shared their responses with Cllr Brodie (who shared them with residents after redacting personal information), the agents and the directors realised they could not easily circumvent the local councillor. So they resolved not to put anything in writing to complainants, insisting that they explained things at private meetings.
They also issued a bullying email to Cllr Brodie threatening him with all sorts of action; none of which has transpired.
Commitments made at meeting
In early June Cllr Brodie was invited to a meeting with the IW Council’s Pan Manco director, which he attended with a Pan Meadows resident as witness. He felt the need to do this after the threatening email from the agent.
At that meeting the IW Council’s Pan Manco director:
- Stated the agent’s threatening email had been unfortunate
- Promised better communications by Pan Manco with Cllr Brodie in future
- Committed to requiring the agents to respect Cllr Brodie’s mandate from his residents
- Undertook to consider how best to explain the service charge increases to residents than had been the case hereto
- Undertook to consider an annual meeting with residents to go through any concerns and explain finances
- Promised to raise all this at the next Board meeting and report back to Cllr Brodie at the end of June
- Some three weeks later this is still not forthcoming despite reminders.
Brodie: “Reached the end of my patience”
Cllr Brodie observed,
“Dealing with Pan Manco, particularly though their managing agents, in recent times has been immensely trying.
“I have reached the end of my patience with them and have decided to publicise all of this instead. People keep saying to me, ‘What have they got to hide?’.
“It certainly makes you wonder.”
ERMC response
Sarah Chatwin, MD of ERMC, told OnTheWight,
“The directors of Manco are represented by Barratts, the Isle of Wight Council and Sovereign Housing Association.
“In relation to dealing with Councillor Brodie, we were asked to allow the interface with the councillor to be the IWC Director Bill Murphy, I have always been happy to deal with Councillor Brodie and am very supportive of the work he does in his community.
“Prior to the election we used to do a walkaround together but during the election I think that the councillor was busy with ‘politics’.
“I think that the directors will be very keen to assist you with the facts. There has been some grave misrepresentation within the community which is very difficult for the directors who are working so hard to maintain success in the Isle of Wight’s largest housing and regeneration projects which is an estate that, once complete, will be heated by the largest biomass town heating system in Europe once the scheme is fully commissioned.”
Further response from Cllr Brodie
In response to Sarah Chatwin’s comments, Cllr Brodie said,
“The reason walkrounds were terminated in the autumn last year was because ERMC reneged on a longstanding agreement for Pan Manco to rent an office in the new Downside Community Centre. It was nothing to do with ‘politics’.
“This created serious financial issues for the local community group. I decided that ERMC could no longer be trusted and preferred to deal with the Council’s director.
“If there were in reality any ‘misrepresentations’ of the situation then why have ERMC entirely failed to address them for residents in the nearly five months since these bills were issued?”
Article edit
14.45pm – Subsequent comment from Cllr Brodie added
Image: Nomadic Lass under CC BY 2.0
