Living in Lawley

The meetings of the LVCA take place monthly, alternating between the first Saturday of each month and the first Thursday evening of each month. They typically take place at Lawley Academy, but please check before leaving, as the venue can sometimes change.

The meetings for 2019 are as follows

Saturday 5th January 9am to Noon
Thursday 7th February. 7pm to 9pm
Saturday 2nd March 9am to Noon
Thursday 4th April. 7pm to 9pm
Saturday 4th May. 9am to Noon
Thursday 6th June. 7pm to 9pm
Saturday 6th July. 9am to Noon
Thursday 1st August. 7pm to 9pm
Saturday 7th September 9am to Noon
Thursday 3rd October. 7pm to 9pm
Saturday 2nd November. 9am to Noon
Thursday 5th December. 7pm to 9pm

All are welcome to attend

I wanted to make some comments on the recent announcement of funding for Lawley and some of the reactions and to answer some questions. I will try to answer some of them here, but I would encourage residents to come to our monthly meetings, as we really do discuss all these issues and could give you the answers you may be looking for. In relation to the Stewardship Charge itself, I agree that it is like double taxation. We are legally required to pay it and there is a major democratic deficit in how it is governed. In the last year, there has been a significant change in BVT's level of engagement with us and support for our efforts to make changes. It has taken time, but changes are coming which will address your concerns. Over the last year, I have talked to campaign groups, Homes England, submitted evidence to an inquiry by Sajid Javid, spoken and worked with Lucy Allen, MP, the Parish Council, particularly Jayne Greenaway and with Shaun Davies, Leader of the Council and Raj Mehta, Borough Councillor and Mayor. The LVCA is non-political and we have worked with all parties to try to effect change. We welcomed this funding because it will allow us to fix some of the things residents are concerned about. Bringing infrastructure up to standard and improving the environment we live in. It will provide funding to develop facilities for Lawley, but the most important benefit will be their commitment to working with us to transform governance and to change how stewardship works. We hope also that we can work jointly with the Parish council, the LVDG and Homes England on these changes. I know some residents would like to see the scheme scrapped. Whilst there may be an appetite to reform Leasehold issues and make some changes to Stewardship schemes, I don’t think there is any realistic prospect of legislation to relieve residents of new developments of the burden of management charges. I live in a Band E house and pay roughly £1,960 including Adult Social Care, Police and Fire. On top, we pay a Parish Council Precept of £120 and a Stewardship Charge of £250. It is a lot and we will only change things if we get involved. The Parish Council has a budget of roughly £450K and Stewardship £425K but both budgets will increase significantly over the next few years, as the estate continues its rapid growth. Lawley is a great place to live, but we do have problems. There are quality issues, problems with infrastructure maintenance, adoption of the roads by TWC, costs and control over stewardship, lack of dedicated community facilities, etc. These problems involve lots of agencies including Homes England, Lawley and Overdale Parish Council, TWC, BVT and the Developer Group (LVDG). We need clearer lines of accountability and more co-ordination. In the last year the LVCA has been exploring options. We set up community meetings to consult with residents, looked at other schemes, some managed by commercial companies and others by resident groups. We concluded that the best way forward was: 1. Seek to reform the Stewardship Scheme for Lawley to deliver greater resident control over the budget and priorities and to seek to make it a model of best practice in the future 2. To look at the governance structures set up in Lawley and try to bring each of the key stakeholders to work more collaboratively to resolve some of the problems we face It is in that context that we welcomed the announcement of funding for Lawley to support this process. We have had dozens of residents working with the LVCA, working groups and with BVT. We are are working with an Independent consultant to help us to prepare a report to with our recommendations for transformation of the Stewardship scheme. The LVCA will shortly be sending out a survey to all residents asking for your detailed views on the problems and what your priorities are to get this fixed. (The funding for this is coming from BVT’s central costs, not from the local Stewardship scheme). The survey is independent of BVT and the findings will be shared with all residents through our website. The working groups recommendations combined with the survey results will be the basis for reforming the scheme. If you want change, now is the time to engage with the process to making it happen. I cannot go into all the details but there very positive development and opportunities which could have a huge impact on what Lawley will look like in the future. You are welcome to come to the meetings and join us. On the 4th April, the LVCA will have its AGM, from 7pm to 9pm. We will elect the board and would welcome you to stand or participate in any way you can. If you are interested in standing, contact me.

Following our community meeting about the future of the Stewardship Scheme, we have begun work on re-designing the Stewardship Scheme. We have 3 working groups which are

Group 1 Delivery of Stewardship and Charges – Strategic Objectives
1. To shape the current and future stewardship offer to Lawley residents.
2. Identify concerns with regard to services and covenants, complaints and enforcement, including practices and procedures in the Stewardship contract
3. Develop ideas on how to develop service and covenant delivery, which meets the reasonable aspirations of residents
4. Clarify service charge expenditure, collection and how residents may influence potential spend of service charges
5. Develop and improve transparency and information flow on service charges and expenditure for all residents

Group 2 Establish effective working relationship with the Development Group - Strategic Objectives:
1. To develop a service level agreement with Lawley Developers, which is considered good practice for “large scale development with residents” from start on site, to handover of sites, which enable stewardship to take early control of matters which are important to residents
2. Clarify accountabilities of Homes England and Developers during the development and retained responsibilities for Lawley, including how residents and stewardship services can influence this, through meaningful engagement
3. To develop ideas for a living map of stewardship
4. To increase transparency on all communications and management of resident expectations

Group 3 Community Development and Involvement - Strategic Objectives
1. To shape the current and develop the future community involvement offer for residents of Lawley Village
2. To define the “Heart of Lawley” offer through local amenities, businesses and public spaces, which meets the aspirations of Lawley residents
3. To consider options for short, mid and long-term governance structures and alternative democratic processes for local influence, dedicated staffing and local control of resources

If you would like to participate, please email me on chair@lvca.co.uk
Jim Weir