Deadly Asbestos in Toryglen Homes – the Grim Reaper Creeps Up On Failed Thistle Housing

1,299 DAYS – 3 YEARS + 6 MONTHS + 22 DAYS
since Thistle’s mismanaged Major Works Programme started on 7th January 2016
971 DAYS – 31 MONTHS + 29 DAYS
since 30th November 2016 when “all of the works to all of the houses in Toryglen will be complete“. Today, 29th July 2019, still incomplete, work proven to be shoddy and more importantly, dangerous and now possibly hazardous to life and limb

The Evening Times, Monday 29 July 2019, click here

Toryglen residents have been forced to endure Thistle’s failed Major Works Programme, with no consultation or discussion, for almost three years. A programme which was to take no more than fourteen weeks per household and be fully complete by 30 November 2016 and, after 971 days, still incomplete and now proven to be dangerous with an expected additional expenditure of approximately £1.8million required to effect repairs to an ever ending list of substandard work, £1.8million of Toryglen residents’ funds which need not have been wasted had Thistle’s arrogant, uneducated and vastly overpaid management listened to residents, many of whom have more building and business experience than they have.

£1,800,000 more cash, residents’ cash needed
Can you imagine any other organisation, never mind one which is a mutual association and pretends to be a charity, having to fork out that sort of money, £1.8million, without there being repercussions as to the cause of this gross failure? In Thistle Housing, those responsible, Grace McColgan, Daniella Sprott, Jim Naismith (the bookkeeper) and the Chairperson, Brenda Wilson (who doesn’t even rent or own a home in Toryglen) do not consider themselves to carry any responsibility nor do they have the decency to admit their culpability. Then again, its not their money. It’s the association’s, Toryglen residents’ association’s money.

Their only grasping desire is to continue coining in the loot for as long as they can (except for Brenda, a person who has never worked, with zero business or organisational skills, now living in St Brigid’s Chapel House in Toryglen). Mind you, she was seen scurrying from St Brigid’s this afternoon straight into Thistle Fort. Wonder why? Maybe as it’s in direct line of site and a mere toddle from Thistle Fort, the shout went out from the tap windie of Thistle Fort, ‘Haw Brenda, get yer erse doon here noo‘.

Answers on a postcard please.

So much for Thistle’s once again disappeared Director, Grace McColgan’s mantra of “a fixed price contract“. The “fixed” bit certainly fits the bill. One wonders just how many brown envelopes have exchanged hands in this mess.

Residents constantly barracked Thistle’s arrogant management about the faulty chimneys, the faulty roofs, the window cills (which are not window cills and for which Thistle retained from its inexplicable E.ON contract approximately £300,000 to effect repairs but have told no one), the faulty gutters and the cracking and discolouring render/roughcasting. Thistle’s responses? Stories then the lies then silence, refusing to respond to residents’ queries in the desperate hope that they would simply go away. Like that would work!

The ‘A’ Word – Asbestos
All of the above, whilst bad enough and now, Toryglen residents have the fear of asbestos contamination in their common space attics where water tanks, many without covers, are located.

Thistle’s management were aware, at least from June 2016 (and should have been aware since they took over the estate in January 2001), that after a surprise Health and Safety Executive investigation, an asbestos situation existed in common attic spaces. They were supposed to ‘manage’ it and advise residents. They did neither. This was the time when the first tranche of blocks had the roofs removed and were open to the elements for six weeks. The workers had vanished (and not for the last time). Why did they vanish? Asbestos?? Another roofing crew eventually appeared and bashed the new roofs on, maybe that’s why the roofs are in such a poor state and have to be redone.

Broken Every Rule
After investigation and lots of reading, Thistle Housing Association and its self serving management have broken every legal requirement of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012. Not one or two but ALL. Then again, this mirrors the arrogance of a profoundly failed management who think they can flout the laws of the land as they do not apply to them. Don’t they just have a shock in store.

According to Regulations, all buildings built prior to the year 2000 must be assumed to contain asbestos with proper records maintained, available for viewing at all times. Thistle has no Duty Holder except for their laughingly termed ‘Technical Officer’, the witless Larry Kilkenny. In place of him, the legal requirements designate the ‘Chief Executive’ as the responsible person. That would be Grace McColgan who, yet again and equally conveniently, has once more vanished, reported by Thistle staff to be “on the sick”. Poor woman must be really ill having been off “on the sick” for nine of the last eleven months, just exactly at the same time as the Scottish Housing Regulator intervened.

Image of an attic water tank taken yesterday. Uncovered. Full of gunge but what is the gunge???

Invisible Certificates
Anyway, Thistle have been asked to display Mr Kilkenny’s asbestos credentials (a legal requirement) but no response. It’s a simple question and an easy resolution. Simply dip into his staff file where the required certification will be found. Except that there is no verification, he has had no training and, like all other aspects of his employment, hasn’t the merest of clues. Fits in well in Thistle, then.

Thistle have no Asbestos Register, a legal requirement, so has no record of the hundreds of workmen who have been potentially exposed especially during the Major Works Programme.

In all aspects and in all events, Thistle Housing’s management and indeed, the majority of its staff together with the incompetent poodle Management Committee, have failed in their duty of care to Toryglen residents.

If you would like to read the legal requirements, click on the links below.

190729_Social_Housing_-_Your_Top_10_Questions_Answered (on asbestos)

HSE – Asbestos – The Survey Guide

HSE – Managing and Working with Asbestos

HSE – Managing Asbestsos in Buildings

The Control of Asbestsos Regulations 2012

There will, of course, be more on this as it potentially affects not just a few people but possibly thousands. Families, their friends, their grandchildren, their visitors, all of the onsite workers. The malignant effects of asbestos are profoundly pernicious but take years if not decades to manifest themselves, hence the penalties for breaching the legal requirements are severe.

Tell the Cops
As Thistle Housing has constantly refused to respond to residents’ queries on this subject, queries in writing to the (again disappeared) Director, Grace McColgan and Daniella Sprott, manager in charge of the It Wisnae Me Department, the situation has been reported to Police Scotland as criminal infringements to the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 and as a wilful conspiracy to breach the law to mask the truth from Toryglen residents.

Those responsible within Thistle, particularly now that it is becoming evident that there is a multitude of criminal acts perpetrated by this bunch, must be immediately suspended by the Scottish Housing Regulator pending a full investigation by a suitable external organisation.

Otherwise, what is the Regulator for?