Showing posts with label Hyde Housing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hyde Housing. Show all posts

Sunday 13 August 2023

Hyde tenants on Stonebridge, hit by huge faulty energy bills, put forward their demands

Some of the residents faced with massive bills

Residents of the Hyde Housing Company's development in Stonebridge are in despair over huge gas bills that have put many tenants in arrears with no hope of being able to pay.

Hyde boasted of the energy efficiency of the district heating network that supplies the homes but this appears not to be reflected in residents' bills.

The situation has left residents accumulating arrears of between £1,500 and £3,000 plus.

 


The energy network is supplied by Switch2 and supplies heating and hot water to more than 50 homes. Tenants reported erratic billing and Switch2 admitted that 22 homes had been given estimated bills because their meters were not working properly. Tenants think it is many more homes than this.

As reported before on Wembley Matters heating networks are classed as commercial when they have a shared system, rather than domestic when the flat or house has its own boiler. This means that residents  served by a heating network do not benefit from the energy price cap that applies only to domestic customers.

Residents told me that their complaints about erratic and inaccurate billing have been passed backwards and forwards between Hyde Housing and Switch2, leaving them with nowhere to go to resolve the problem.

The energy supplier is procured by Hyde and tenants have no say regarding the supplier and were not consulted when Hyde recently renewed the contract, despite high levels of of dissatisfaction.  Residents are able to seek the best deal for their electricity supplier.

Some residents stopped heating their social housing properties because of the high bills, putting their own health and that of their children at risk.


Some of the Hyde social housing

Hyde told residents in an email:

Hyde only passes on the unit cost of the heat per kw/hr (plus 5% VAT), the utility provider's standing charge) plus 5% VAT and Switch 2's metering and billing costs (plus 20% VAT). Hyde's energy costs went up significantly in 2022 due to the conflict in Ukraine when both electricity and gas cost increased due to shortage of supply and other market forces. Hyde does not make any surplus on these costs and there are no 'hidden' charges.

The last sentence appears to refer to the practice of some housing providers that get a percentage of bills back from energy providers that they procure - thus having a motivation to support higher bills.

The Standing Charge on the bills shown to me by one tenant was £8.87 a month previously and reduced to £7.37 via the new contract from  July. That is an annual standing charge of £88.44 for heating and hot water before any metering charge.  In contrast OVO energy's gas standing charge for domestic customers is £5.82 per month, £69.84 annually.

Some residents said their standing charge had been much higher and said that Hyde failed to give them full information about the heating system at the beginning of their let. 

I turned to Trust Pilot to see how Switch 2 fared in terms of customer experience.

 


 The reviews are mixed but this very recent review seems to reflect the experience of Hyde tenants:

This company needs to be honest and take the comments and complaints of the customers seriously. Switch2 company is the most ineffective and expensive energy provider in the UK. They are ripping off and send brutally high charges to customers. In terms of customer services and dealing with inquiries of the customers they are the worst.

Date of experience: 05 August 2023

And this:

They have increased standard unit price by 350% and increased a standing charge from 40p to around 1 pound a day meaning that in average I would have to pay 700£ just for standing charge a year that's no gas usage included. Not even given the fact that the current unit price at 31p is three times bigger than current average of around 7-10p per kWh

Date of experience: 31 July 2023

 

The Hyde tenants have decided to put a number of demands to the Hyde and Switch2:

1. Switch 2 to check ALL meters (not just those identified by Switch2) and replace where necessary, providing Smart Meters to be provided for all residents.

2. Because of the unreliability of billing, faulty meters and administrative errors Switch2 to write off accumulated customers' debt and start the new contract with a clean slate.

3. Hyde to consider changing the heating network supplier in consulation with residents.

Friday 6 February 2015

How Section 106 monies have been spent in Stonebridge and Wembley

Residents have often asked what Section 106 (Planning gain from new developments) has been spent on. Glynis Lee asked  Brent Council this Freedom of Information question:
I would like to know how much money has been paid through section106 (planning gain) for the development of Stonebridge estate, (Hyde Housing) and Wembley (Quintain Estates) and I would like to know details of what this money has been spent on.
Brent Council's Answer: LINK

I can confirm that the information requested is held by Brent Council. I have detailed  below the information that is being released to you.
Funds received are either spent, commissioned (committed to a project for futue
spend) or uncommissioned (not yet committed to a project). 
Total funds received under S106 agreements with Hyde Housing in the Stonebridge  Estate are £315,766.36 of which £135,000 has been commissioned to fund
expansion of Stonebridge Primary School. The remainder is uncommissioned.  
Total funds received under S106 agreements with Quintain Estates in Wembley are  £749,715.63 of which spent and £353.266.68 commissioned to the following
projects: 
£116,199.19 spent on provision of public lavatory on Wembley Hill Road
£116,199.18 spent on improvements to Wembley Central Station
£130,634.48 spent and £213,408.22 commissioned to local employment & training  programmes
£14,627.99 spent and £372.01 commissioned to tree planting in vicinity of York
House
£10,000 commissioned to fund energy efficient street lights in the borough
£50,000 commissioned to fund expansion of Preston Park Primary School
£37,232.26 commissioned to fund improvements to King Edwards Park
£17,254.19 commissioned to fund public realm improvements at junction of
Wembley High Road/Wembley Hill Road
£25,000 commissioned to fund highway improvements to junctions along Wembley High Road/Wembley Hill Road 
Stonebridge Adventure Playground campaigners will be especially interested in the c£180,000 uncommissioned funds from Hyde Housing Section 106 monies.