| Trouble In Meadow Lea |
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| Written by John Franklyn | |||||||||||||
| Friday, 28 March 2008 | |||||||||||||
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Who’s The Real Victim
I’ve visited Meadow Lea in Madeley a few times and spoken to quite a few down to earth decent people, but here, we have that element that cannot be considered decent.
Meadow Lea is an area of rented and owner occupied properties but the balance of fairness seems unbalanced.
Here are some live scenarios that are happening as we sit and read this piece.
Residents who own
Some residents are owners and have lived in Meadow Lea for 20 years plus. Some work full time and pay their way, others have retired and still pay their way. Paying Council Tax, paying for dentistry, paying for prescriptions and all those other money sapping things we all have to fork out for.
On top of this cost of living, owner occupiers can and do receive additional bills in the form of service charges.
These service charges seem to arrive randomly and for varying amounts. One resident reported that at around Christmas, residents who own, received a bill for
£1250 and given 28 days in which to pay.
On top of this, other owner occupiers also reported receiving several other bills of £250.
The bills seem to be for the painting of walls along landings of which some was done to a substandard and also done to remove graffiti.
Other elements seem to be for general repairs to things like lighting covers in stair wells, but the repairs are often carried out as a result of vandalism.
Is it fair to charge these additional charges for damage in high traffic areas that could be caused by people who don’t even live in the area?
There appears to be no maintenance programme in which owner occupiers can actually agree to and budget for, especially when some owner occupiers in other parts of the borough report a 50% increase in service charges.
Residents who rent
A number of residents rent from the Private sector and Wrekin Housing Trust.
The Wrekin Housing Trust say that service charges are included in the rent of the property – personally – at some of the quoted prices I for one am not convinced of that, this is also bore out by the fact that some properties on choose Your Home say that additional service charges will need to be paid.
Others
I will avoid calling these others the names they should be called, but lets say you wouldn’t want them as neighbours.
Known addicts that are making peoples lives an absolute misery and wrecking the property they admit to squatting in and have taken over despite the tenancy still being in another residents name.
The real resident of the property that belongs to the trust, says it has been taken off her by these people and the Trust know about it.
I have been in the area and seen the anti-social behaviour first hand. The property is severely damaged, internal doors ripped out, front windows boarded up and now the rear windows have been boarded up after the occupants decided to throw a tv set through it which now rests on the grass outside.
A female resident was today leaning out of her window, shouting obscenities as innocent passers by and crying out “I want my “f*****ing Smack”, a regular occurrence people say.
This is on top of the loud music, drunken loutish behaviour and other anti-social behaviour.
Two Tier Policing
Some of the residents I have spoken with have become very disillusioned by the police.
The people described above have also verbally abused the police. The police in return have been very tolerant of this abuse saying it’s the only way they can communicate.
I can assure you now, that if a decent honourable resident, hung out of their window and verbally abused a Police Officer – they would be hauled off under section 5 and at best given a fine or caution.
This is two tier policing with the tolerance being given to the scum.
Why?
I believe its is because they are considered complex and decent people are a quick clean up improving the plods statistics.
Who Pays
Well, it isn’t just the residents of Meadow Lea, it is every decent tax payer in the Borough and tenant of the Housing Trust who will pay for the endless window replacements, front door replacements, criminal damage, police call outs and every other support function that is given to people who refuse to help themselves but continue and are allowed to continue making decent peoples lives a misery.
If have a question for the Police, MP David Wright who has been informed of these issues, the WHT and every other man and his dog,
When do victims, stop being victims and honourable decent people start being the victim?
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3.20 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."Telford Council Watch                |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 02 April 2008 ) | |||||||||||||
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