The RA's key achievements

We often get asked what the benefit is from an RA, and why people should join. The simple answer is that without your support and membership, it's harder for us to bring about positive change - whether improvements to the development, fixing issues, or achieving better value for money for the leaseholders.

We actively engage with BAML to ensure that there is accountability in the management of the development, and with the local community as we try to make the area a better place to live. For those who've recently joined the development (whether as leaseholders or residents) this page sets out some of our key achievements over the years.

• In the early years of the development, we believed that leaseholders were unfairly charged for the use of the concierge area - paying both rent to the landlord and business rates to the council. For instance, in the 2018/19 accounts, leaseholders were billed £160,000 in rent plus £80,000 in business rates for use of this facility. We successfully challenged these charges. Oxley agreed to reduce the rent to a nominal £1 per year, and, following pressure from both us and BAML, the council removed the business rates entirely. This delivers recurring annual savings of more than £240,000 for leaseholders every single year.
• Another early problem was with the block doors, which would regularly break down and be stuck open. We identified that this was a structural problem, with the doors of blocks built in later stages having improved closing mechanisms with automatic closers. Working with BAML, we pushed for the landlord, Oxley, to review the block doors using an independent third party. Upon completion of this review, Oxley agreed to a programme to modernise block doors across early build phases, costing around £1m, with no costs falling on leaseholders. This project was later expanded to include garden gates, which were too heavy to be supported by the original hinges. In addition, we pushed for Oxley to compensate leaseholders for repair costs incurred and in the 2019/20 accounts Oxley provided a provision of £124,000 to reduce the general repairs bill for that year, representing compensation for costs incurred since 2017.
• Each year we review the accounts when they are released, going through transactions and raising queries with BAML where necessary. The detailed letters relating to these account inspections can be found on the SC accounts page. So far, we have identified over £450,000 in costs that have been unfairly charged or duplicated. We have also found various examples of blocks being charged unfairly for estate issues, forcing BAML to reallocate these charges.
• After a number of years, the riverside promenade started to wear more quickly than anticipated. We worked with BAML to have this fixed as a defect, with the freeholder covering the majority of the cost.
• In 2020, Ballymore Construction put in a planning application to extend the life of their marketing suite for a further five years. This was a large building situated where the children’s playground now is in Royal Wharf Gardens. The RA successfully petitioned for Ballymore to drop their plans and create the children’s play area as planned when the development started.
• We worked with the local council, police and BAML to establish a Ward Panel to address issues at Royal Wharf and the local area. This continues to be regularly attended by members of the committee.
• We coordinate objections to the proposed Lorry Park behind West Silvertown DLR station, engaging with local MPs, the Council Planning Dept, Gazeley and local residents. These plans were subsequently replaced with a data centre, significantly reducing the expected HGV and LGV traffic along North Woolwich Road.
• As part of our review of insurance documentation we discovered that the townhouse insurance documents made no mention of installed sprinkler systems. Correcting this resulted in a meaningful drop in townhouse insurance costs.
• We have repeatedly helped organise objections to plot 14b, which resulted in the original plan being withdrawn. We continue to object to the latest submission given the disruption it would cause, but have persuaded the developer to add a 1,000 sq foot residents’ space should it go ahead.
• in 2020 we successfully pushed BAML to sign up to the independent Property Ombudsman Scheme for complaint handling.

More broadly, we organise the hugely successful Royal Wharf Halloween Trail, and hold annual Christmas drinks where our members can get together and meet others from within our community. Various improvements in management transparency, including one to one service charge surgeries offered by the estate director around budgets, have also been implemented at our request.