Contact us by email at   Strawberryvalecommunity@gmail.com          

We look forward to a Strawberry Vale without problems where The Residents Association can promote the very positive things about living here. 

                                        Travel back in time and see how Strawberry Vale once looked here.

We understand that our current Neighbourhood Manager is Karla. 

All enquiries need to go through the Peabody call centre. 0300123 3456

The SVRA is always active with looking after residents' interests - see the entries below.

8th December 2023. Great news today that Peabody have announced that the proposed installation of heat meters - tripling resident's heating bills - has now been put off for four years. Thanks to the strong arguing and petition of residents by the SVRA and the intervention of local MP Mike Freer. 

31st May 2023. Leaseholders and freeholders received a demand from Peabody for extra service charge payments of £1100 to £1400! These are for the financial year to April 2022. The SVRA is querying this massive extra charge. The scale of Peabody service charges has even been raised in Parliament.
Read about it here: https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/60709

9th May 2023. The Housing Ombudsman is now making a formal assessment of our complaint against Peabody about heat meters. For lease and freeholders the SVRA continues to question service charges past and present. 

January 2023. The SVRA now has a complaint lodged with the Housing Ombudsman about the manner in which Peabody have been dealing with the installation of heat meters. Specifically, the excessive charging apparently planned and also the refusal to confirm or deny the charging in writing. After the intervention by local MP Mike Freer, Peabody have delayed installation until next autumn 'at the earliest'. The planned use of only prepayment meters is also being looked at.

27th October 2022. We have heard today that Peabody are now delaying the installation of heat meters until next spring so that they can 'gather more information and engage further with our residents.'

Hopefully this means that the ridiculous scale of charging planned through the unregulated sub-contractor Switch2 will be scaled back to an honest level. Also that the completely unjustified and near corrupt increase of the Peabody 'management fee' from 10% to 50% of the gas cost will be removed. It may mean less exotic holidays for Peabody directors but so it should! 

14th October 2022. Thanks to the 205 residents who signed the petition against the proposed charging from heat meters. This petition has now gone to Peabody directors. We also now have our local MP, Mike Freer, taking up the case with Peabody. Peabody are due to hold a meeting in the Green Man soon for residents to learn about heat meters.  

2nd October 2022. Many residents attended a meeting in the Green Man to learn more about the Peabody plans to install heat meters. The problem is not with the installation but with the tripling of heating charges that will follow. A petition has been organised opposing the plans. There will also be further responses soon as Peabody are now refusing to answer a simple direct question asking them to confirm the intended 180% markup to the gas cost they are planning.

Residents here on the communal heating system are not protected by OFGEM or the cap on energy bills.

Read here the report in the Financial Times that appeared a few weeks ago about Peabody and their overcharging through service charges. Peabody had been trying to suppress the report for 7 months but it was leaked to the FT. The full report is shown below which is now available on the Peabody website as well as here!

29th September 2022. Read a press release here going out to the media about the Peabody plan to triple your charges.

19th September 2022. Peabody are continuing with their plan to install 'heat meters' in to each property on the communal heating system. Residents will then have to pay a sub-contractor, Switch2, instead of Peabody. Switch2 will want payments in advance and will have the power to switch off your heating and hot water if you go into arrears.

The charges that Switch2 will make will include a new £187 a year standing charge to each home. From the figures given so far, the heating charges will nearly triple! So a tenant paying £500 a year for heating could be charged £1500 including the £187 standing charge. Peabody say that residents will be able to save money by turning down their heating or turning it off using a new room thermostat that they will install. They have also said that you will be able to keep warm from the heat coming through the walls from your neighbours!

Switch2 have a reputation for overcharging and for their meters being unreliable. Peabody have not carried out independent checks on Switch2 but have chosen them because they are cheap and part of the deal is that Peabody will take a massive 'Management Fee' for themselves even though they are handing the work over to Switch2. This fee could be £100,000 a year being taken out of residents' payments for their heating. See the table below supplied by Richard Ellis, the Peabody Director of Sustainability.

Of further concern, is that all heat meters are known to be unreliable on hot water systems that get air in them. It was air in the system last winter that caused the repeated failures of the communal heating here. Peabody's response to this is just to say all mechanical things can go wrong!

The next SVRA meeting on Sunday October 2nd 11am at The Green Man will be to see what we can do to stop or limit the damage to the estate and residents lives by Peabody.

2nd September 2022.

This is the table sent by Richard Ellis showing how Peabody will nearly triple heating charges here - including taking a massive 'Management fee' for themselves.  

The price of gas is what Peabody buy it at and the bottom line - the Total - is what residents will be charged by Switch2.

Currently we just pay for the gas without any mark up. This shows a 180% mark up!

The Peabody Head of Energy, Amita Mehta, corrects the mistakes made by Richard Ellis including the number of homes here error. Unfortunately, she also gets this wrong. How is that people in positions of power and responsibility are so badly informed - or is it just incompetence?

28th August 2022. Peabody, or at least the Director of Sustainability, has decided that the installation of Heat meters is going ahead. In two lengthy emails Richard Ellis, the Director of Sustainability, set out how wonderful they would be and how all residents would be better off. This would be in spite of introducing a new standing charge of £187 a year and nearly tripling the cost of the gas with a massive mark up of the price. A large part (17%) of the new heating charge residents will pay would be a 'management fee' going to Peabody of about £100,000 a year. For doing very little, if anything.

The Director of Sustainability is so badly informed he doesn't even know how many homes there are in Strawberry Vale! His calculations of charges are based on the wrong number of homes! He also claims you would be able to keep warm from the heat coming through the wall from your neighbours' home! This is just how uncaring some people at Peabody are.

If you want to know just how bad things could get look at this recent BBC news item about the lack of controls over 'heat networks' like the one in Strawberry Vale    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62753056

This is what we could face if Peabody install heat meters.  

4th August 2022.  Peabody have finally revealed the cost of heat metering that they intend to impose on residents here in the draft of a letter to be sent to residents.

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 Once the meters are installed (measuring the amount of hot water you draw from the communal heating system) you will be charged a daily standing charge that will mean a £187.60 annual bill for residents BEFORE any charges are made for the energy/hot water used. Peabody have also advised that the energy/hot water used will be measured on a unit price that will be MORE than the existing equivalent unit charge from using the communal heating system.

Peabody are handing over the metering and billing to a third party contractor Switch2.co.uk. So it makes no difference to Peabody how much Switch2 will charge residents - they may even get financial benefit from it at the residents' expense!

For most residents this annual unavoidable fixed charge will bump up their heating and hot water bills. Switch2 will want payment in advance and they will have the power to cut off heating and hot water to residents for non payment.

Peabody present this as being unavoidable - forced on them by legislation. That is not entirely true. It could be avoided and reassessed every 4 years according to the legislation. It is not being done on all their estates with communal heating. They have made no attempt to consult residents about this and not issued Section 20 notices to leaseholders.

If you are unhappy about this extra charging about to be forced on you please make it known to Peabody, your councillors and your MP. 

As far as we know, the gas supply to cookers is unaffected by this and will continue to be charged for through service charges. Peabody have been removing the gas supply to properties whenever tenants move out.

29th July 2022.  Discover some truths about how badly Peabody manage service charges by reading a report which Peabody are keen to hide from residents. It is written by residents and follows a year long investigation with a big online survey and many focus group meetings. It shows how most people who challenge their service charges discover they are overcharged.

It also shows how Peabody put obstacles in the way of residents trying to query their charges. Shared owners in particular get a raw deal and many feel unhappy with their purchase.

Peabody have said how good the report is but they don't want residents to see it and won't put it on their website. They have sat on it for seven months trying to prevent any residents seeing it. They have even tried to censor it before letting residents see it.

 If you are a leaseholder or shared owner you should read it. Click on image of report to read.

6th July 2022.  Peabody have just communicated with us that they plan to change the way we pay for the communal heating system. This has happened because of government legislation. It will be a big change to the estate.

Peabody plan to introduce a metering system that will measure the amount of hot water you take from the communal heating system. So the more radiators you have on the more you will be using. The more hot baths you have the more heat you will be using.  These metering systems are installed in many new developments where there are communal boilers and what are called 'heat networks'.  Essentially it means that you will be charged according to how much heat from the communal system you use instead of the existing flat rate system.

The meters will be installed in airing cupboards into the pipework. They have a reputation for being unreliable and for easily giving false readings. Legislation requires them to be regularly maintained - some experts advise on an annual basis.

Peabody will be required to make improvements to every property to allow better controls over the heating - more thermostats - improved hot water cylinders and other things. That is a considerable undertaking and required by the legislation. It will take quite a while.

Significantly Peabody have to make all the arrangements by 1st September. They have known that they need to make this change for a year but there has been no consultation with residents in that time until now. Even now there is no real consultation giving residents information or any choice.

The one area that has not been made clear - and that the Peabody Head of Energy did not appear to know!! - is what this will eventually cost residents. We are pressing hard to get this information out of them. 

Reducing the wastage of energy has to be a good thing environmentally. It is better to turn off heating than opening your windows to cool down! We trust that Peabody will keep everyone's energy bills down and expect Peabody to provide the information asap!

29th July.   More than three weeks on from first being told about this, Peabody have still not responded with any information about the extra charges to residents. We have the local councillors and MP involved now trying to get information out of them.
                                         

October 2021. Peabody would like to help residents save money on their water and energy bills! They are working with an organisation called AgilityEco who offer free advice by phone. Peabody reckon that households can save an average of £140 off their energy bills using this service.  To get the service call the Peabody Customer Hub and ask for the Energy Advice Service or search 'energy advice' on the Peabody website.

On 25th October Strawberry Vale becomes part of the ULEZ zone. You can check if your car is ULEZ compliant on this official website   www.ulez.co.uk/ulez-checker  

June 2021.  After three months of lobbying the Property Accounts Team they have agreed that the service charge increases given to 135 tenancies here were a mistake. The tenancies affected were older ones established years ago. So these tenants will soon be receiving a reduction and refund. They will be notified by letter.  It seems to be exactly the same problem/error that happened last year. The Team believe they have identified the cause so hopefully it won't recur in 2022!

If you pay by Direct Debit please check your Peabody account to make sure that the new corrected amount is being collected by Peabody. Last year the incorrect amount continued to be charged all year by the Peabody sub-contractor All Pay!

"A big thank you to SVRA members who worked so hard for us to get our gas restored. I'm now enjoying cooking on gas for the first time this evening, which is all due to you."

"We would like to sincerely thank you for your relentless perseverance in making this happen."