Fly Wi’ the Craws, Get Shot Wi’ the Craws – A Lesson Not Learned by Thistle Housing

1,394 DAYS – 3 YEARS + 9 MONTHS + 25 DAYS
since Thistle’s mismanaged Major Works Programme started on 7th January 2016
1,066 DAYS – 35 MONTHS + 2 DAYS
since 30th November 2016 when “all of the works to all of the houses in Toryglen will be complete“. Today, 1st November 2019, still incomplete, work proven to be shoddy and more importantly, dangerous and now possibly hazardous to life and limb

Read today’s full article here
or see the graphic at the end of this piece

Well, there you go. After years of ignoring their customers, after years of spendthrift, profligate  waste of money, after years of a proven grossly incapable management ruling the roost, after years of an arrogant staff bullying residents, after now being found out, Thistle Housing will soon be no more.

 

 

 

Let’s face facts – Thistle Housing, since they crawled out from the Gorbals in 2001, have done zilch for Toryglen. They now claim on their amateurish new website that they have invested £35 million in Toryglen. Utter nonsense and, of course, yet another Thistle lie!

Even now, after the hangman stands with his noose at the ready, they still can’t help themselves. Mind you, a fair whack of that would have been on the inflated and unjustified salary packages for the rancid, self interested senior management. That, in itself, over Thistle’s near nineteen year stranglehold of Toryglen is approximately £3 million only for McColgan, Sprott and Naismith. Anything Thistle have done in this almost nineteen years, was the absolute minimum they had to do and as the Scottish Government directed and not one jot more. Of course, as it is now known all too well, they expensively messed that up too.

Investment – Like Fluffy the Clown, all made up
If Thistle had invested in Toryglen, as have the majority of other housing associations invested in their own areas, the backyards would not be like something from the thirties with fifty year old bin shelters with broken doors crawling with foxes, rats and other vermin surrounded by wooden fences literally falling to bits, closes would not be badly painted with cracked, stained concrete surfaces, there would be no broken down walls or fences and railings which haven’t seen a lick of paint for many decades.

There are fences in Toryglen which were erected during World War II to surround the anti aircraft gun emplacements in what eventually ended up being Queen’s Park Secondary School then the ‘new hooses’ and close to the barrage balloon and rocket emplacements at what used to be the dead end road next to the ten storey flats (now into Prospecthill Circus). None of them has been painted since before King George VI gave up being Emperor of India. Bet there’s not a single halfwit in Thistle who knows any of this. Or cares. Not a single member of the management stays in Toryglen so why should they be concerned?

If they had invested in Toryglen there would be a raft of new affordable housing, as the majority of other associations have done. Nah, that would have required foresight, ability, intelligence and direction. There was (is?) plenty of land to the north of Prospecthill Road up for grabs but that ended up with private housing and the GHA. Did Thistle even try for it? Nope. Thistle’s intellectually flatlined management were too busy lining their own pockets to bother with any of that stuff. Being thick as two short planks didn’t help much either.

What they do probably mean about this unexplained £35 million so-called investment,  is the multi million pound mortgage they took out with their bankers to buy the tenanted properties from the now ex-Scottish Homes (previously SSHA) plus the loans they had to win the acceptance and vote of tenants with the installation of  (really rather crap) bathrooms and kitchens into rented homes which hadn’t seen a penny of investment since the 1950’s when most of the properties were built, right up to the early 1960’s when Prospecthill Crescent and Place were constructed.

Since then, Thistle have invested nothing to enhance the public realm of Toryglen, nothing voluntarily, other than government mandated improvements, which they were forced to complete as their Warm Homes performance figures were light years behind any other similar housing association. They could have done as they owe, on average, less than £11,000 debt on each of their properties. They couldn’t be bothered.

Note that the kitchens and bathrooms, as well as central heating systems, are written off over a twenty year period so, as of early 2021, their replacement should be considered. Mind you, that won’t be Thistle’s problem as that stain on Toryglen will, by that time, have been expunged.

So, this £35 million YOU have invested!! Go on Thistle, explain this figure on your new website. 

The South Toryglen Tenants Association – An attempt to con Thistle tenants
In local parlance, that was a stoater! A fake so-called independent association conjured up by McColgan and her henchmen, so that they could pretend to be ‘negotiating’ with this non existent body on the subject of rent increases.

The problem there was that it was ‘run’ by a pal of the now booted director, DisGrace McColgan. The few meetings they ever supposedly had, frequently with an attendance of somewhere between one and zero, was in full eyeshot of Thistle staff, in Thistle’s office and reputedly sponsored by Thistle. Enquiries were made by residents into the workings of this illusive mob, as below:

“I am interested in being a member of The South Toryglen Tenants’ Association but naturally, have some questions as I know nothing about it although as Thistle Housing has refereed to STTA on several occasions, it would seem to be that the Association does exist in some form although the local political representatives apparently know nothing of it. I have some questions which will provide little difficulty in answering.

1. What are the aims of the STTA?
   
2. How long has it been in existence?
   
3. Is there a constitution available for inspection?
   
4. Is membership open to all or is it a closed group with membership by invitation?
   
5. To whom is membership open?
   
6. How is it funded?
   
7. How much are the membership fees?
   
8. Who are the officials of the STTA?
   
9. Are the officials of STTA independent of Thistle Housing Association?
   
10. How often and where does the STTA meet?
    
11. How and when are officials elected and by what method?
    
12. Is there a record of achievements available to read?
    
13. Does STTA meet with local political representatives and if so, how often?
    
14. Has the STTA been active on behalf of Toryglen residents over the past two and a half years since Thistle Housing signed an agreement with Glasgow City Council in September 2015 for taxpayer grant funding to allow the current Major Works Programme to proceed, fail and be drawn out? This would have been an ideal time for such an association to be active on behalf of residents, many of whose lives have been blighted during this improvement programme.”
    

The Response

“Thank you for your enquiry regarding membership of South Toryglen Tenants Association. The South Toryglen Tenants Association is a constituted group which has been running for over 20 years now.

We are always very keen to attract new members, however it is well known in Toryglen that you are the creator of the ”Grab The Thistle” blog. This blog is very offensive and does not reflect the Toryglen residents views and certainly not in a manner which any decent resident would find acceptable.

The tone of your email is very insulting particularly when aimed at your neighbours and not the manner in which you would want to start a constructive relationship with members of the STTA

Regards

Joanne
STTA”

Ask reasonable questions and immediately there is a charge of bullying and insulting behaviour. There is nothing negative about the questions asked here. In fact, quite the opposite. The only insults are contained within the response.

They, whoever ‘they’ were, on being pushed for more info, arrogantly announced, via Thistle, that they held frequent discussions with local political representatives as stated from the clip above from one of Thistle’s lie sheets. Strange, as none of the local political representatives had ever heard of them and that they were not registered with any of the usual regulatory bodies.

When pressed as to why there had been neither mention nor any action during the troubled Major Works Programme, a time when it would be expected that some activity would have been witnessed from this shadowy association, Thistle immediately clammed up.

Rapidly thereafter, Thistle announced that this so-called independent body had conveniently disbanded after a claimed existence of twenty years (even longer than Thistle’s presence in Toryglen??) of which no one knew anything about. Smell a rat here anyone? Go on, google it. After more than a claimed twenty years of being a constituted group, surely it would appear online somewhere? Nah. It doesn’t exist. It never did. It was a Thistle tool to con people, a tool conjured up by Thistle’s management to manipulate their own tenants.

You can see a trend here. Not only did they attempt to manipulate the owners but also serially lied to their own tenants. The Thistle way. Rotten to the core.

Wonder how much money, how many fake expenses, vanished into that non existent hole?

The Blame Game
Now the Blame Game has started. The staff are fighting like ferrets in a sack. Each and every one screaming that it wasn’t their fault. Well, whose fault was it? Fingers pointing, ‘it wisnae me‘! They no doubt learned that trick from their masters, McColgan, Sprott and Naismith together with the ineffectual so-called Management Committee, a rabble of incompetents,  whose entire sum of ability was running their well known Bingo Nites.

Can anyone, anyone at all, point out which member of the committee, especially the unmatched intellect of Brenda Wilson, the forever chairperson/vice chairperson/then chairperson yet again, never mind the inarticulate, cash bloated management, had the knowledge, the ability and the training to examine, comprehend and sign off contracts amounting to many millions of pounds?  After all, Miss Sprott did admit, in an unusual bout of honesty, “Ah’m no technical”.  Speechless at that one. Why the hell was she Operations Manager grabbing a huge salary package when she hadn’t a clue? As useful as tits on a fly.

Then there’s DisGrace McColgan, the failed director of Thistle Housing. Oh well, after lapping it up, conveniently disappeared herself  ‘off sick’  for eleven months (needed time to buy that new Mercedes), coincidentally minutes before the Regulator descended on Thistle Fort on 23 August 2018, she’s now gone, not soon enough but gone, no doubt with a hefty cash grab to spend in and around her many homes.

All of them, the greedy failed management of Thistle Housing and the previous incapable, easily swayed committee, so thick that light bends around them.

That lot would need to read the instructions on a banana to get it to work. Then again, in Thistle, when you draw your water from the same well, all get poisoned.

The Buggers! James Bond to the Rescue …or not!
Thistle management and the now ejected dullards on the committee had even mulled over the possibility of Thistle Fort being bugged as residents have discovered too many of their corrupt antics far too quickly. Not that there should have been so many secrets in Thistle in the first place but there you have it. It’s the nature of the beast and one of the many shortfalls which has deservedly brought the corrupt Thistle Housing down. The paranoia of the guilty!

Of course they are being spied upon. Of course their offices are bugged. How difficult would that be for someone who has the knowledge? Cheap equipment is easily available and as all their IT kit (which is complete crap anyway) and telephones all run over ethernet,  bugging that is so easy peasy.  Thistle obviously don’t know that the frequency blocking mesh film on the windows of Thistle Fort, in part designed to block wireless signals, just doesn’t work and can be bypassed in so many ways, like, for a few examples, Wireshark program, a suitable wireless access point or router with appropriate reblown firmware, pointing out from the adjacent flats only a few meters away or in a car parked outside for a few days.  How about a hidden tap on an ethernet cable picking up everything? How about a wee sleekit USB device slotted into a PC?  James Bond stuff? Nope, not these days. Is there any security on Thistle’s network? Apparently not.

Doing a bit of bugging would be so much more sensible and far, far easier than the simple alternative of listening to the ravings of some moronic, idiot member of staff who clypes and brags away half drunk in a bar showing off to her easily impressed and similarly daft pals and then passed on to their pals all of which was, and has been since, well eariwigged. That and some of the drivelling, now ex-committee members bragging in a  vain attempt to display their importance that they knew things no one else did.

As far as the likes of Facebook is concerned and used by the fatally thick who have no idea who their moaning comments are being read by, maybe they shouldn’t have made comments to those who they thought were ‘friends’. Mind you, with many of them struggling with an IQ barely into double figures, it’s not too difficult to eek out information from that forum.

Yup, the obviously easier method of bugging definitely wins, hands down. Much easier than listening to drunk gossip and show off fools. Cheers!

They, in the guise of McColgan and Sprott, even claimed that the email on their free iPads had been hacked but, regardless, still sent out supposedly secret (and always unencrypted) emails for them to be (supposedly) hacked yet again. Not that any of that lot would know how to use an iPad other than playing some infantile game and taking some piccies, maybe of some half pissed staff revealing all to everyone. ‘Naw, it wisnae me’ …..aye it wiz or maybe it was just flooding the joint with bugging devices, which, after all, would have been much, much easier.

Maybe all of this an example of misdirection, similar to one of the few talents exhibited by Thistle’s failed management? Then again……!

The Real Culprits
So, who actually wielded power in Thistle? The now departed DisGrace McColgan, as Director, had overall responsibility and drowned herself in the stench of her own ignorant arrogance but the real culprit was Daniella Sprott, the failed Operations Manager. Jim Naismith, the bookkeeper, insidiously fettled the books to make it all look good (except the wee insignificant bit of millions of pounds of losses and many more to come) and just simply did as he was told by the growling Sprott and the self opinionated McColgan.

Back to the Management Committee which is supposed to be the real decision makers of the business – always the same names, the same vacant faces, far too busy enjoying the freebies, hadn’t a clue and agreed to anything foisted upon them by McColgan and Sprott.

Guilty through ignorance.

Some of Thistle’s staff are undoubtedly at least passable but the majority……….? Well, residents will easily be able to fill in the blanks. Throwing unmonitored sickies, abusing their very flexible work hours, ridiculing residents, bare faced lying to them. It’s endless. Did they ever consider what they were doing was the right thing? Did they ever care? Did they do anything about it as they sure had the opportunity? Nope.

Peasants – All of Them – What Do They Know?
They considered the tenants of their properties in Toryglen to be thick and stupid as they bullied them for years. The fear of the Factor no doubt played a part in this. They pulled this trick with owners too, who would get bills for unsubstantiated items. They moaned but coughed up.

This all changed three years ago when some residents had another look at the circumstances of Thistle when the Major Works Programme was dropped in their laps, with little to no notice. No consultation with residents, no discussion, no interest. It was a fait accompli and ‘ye’ll jist dae as yer telt’.  That worked well.

Thistle signed the grant funding for the projected Major Works Programme with Glasgow City Council in September 2015 but told no one. They signed a works contract with E.ON in January 2016 but told no one. They did of course, lie when eventually challenged by residents as to why they had decided on E.ON with no due diligence, with Sprott’s announcement that Glasgow City Council gave them no choice, an announcement completely repudiated in writing to residents by Patrick Flynn, Glasgow City Council’s Head of Housing. Another made up lie but one wonders why? Is there more to this perchance? Maybe once the results of the investigation into the E.ON contract are made known, more light will be shone on it. Through a brown envelope, maybe?

In March/April 2016, they started to hound owners for money, even banging on residents’ doors unannounced, giving them only days to find it, and in cash, with threats that if they didn’t cough up pronto, grant funding for their homes would be removed and they would be liable for the full cost of all the work, £13,000 plus legal fees. Residents were told that no loans were available (another lie), no time to pay, no pay half now, half later.

They wanted cash up front, as any loans would not be paid to Thistle until the work was completed and completed to residents’ satisfaction. They could have made it known to residents five to six months earlier, the previous September (2015), that the upgrades were due to happen soon thus giving people time to save or make arrangements. Why was that? It was a desperate smash and grab. They needed the cash to pay for the upgrades to their own properties and just simply lied and threatened frightened residents, especially the elderly, to get it. In too many cases, that threat worked.

“Developing a better community”? That would be laughable if it wasn’t so much of a down and out fib from a shower of self indulgent chancers.

This was all admitted by Miss Sprott when she was pushed during a discussion with residents in October 2016 when she uttered, “We needed the cash upfront“. So stupid that she didn’t understand what she was saying and failed to have the wit of realising that residents had previously discovered that they already had the grant funding in their greedy mitts.

From these points onward, residents started to smell a rat and started to look at things just a wee bit closer. What they found was a nest of vipers followed by the Regulator opening up a seething can of worms.

If you would like a small insight into one of the many reasons residents found need to complain, watch a wee video taken almost three years ago. Click here.

Or when Daniella Sprott, Operations Manager (failed) tells you that a full water test had been undertaken on roofs to prove that the (now proven faulty) roof tiles and gutters were performing correctly, and you subsequently, two years later after managing to get the evidence, discover this. The depth and frequency of the never ending lies from Thistle are simply beyond belief.

The Investigations
There are several investigations, the results of which are yet to be reported. Bob McGuire, the Interim Director, expensively hired from Savills, one supposes to augment his pension, has confirmed that all results will be “shared” with residents. Maybe he would also like to ‘share’ the answers to questions residents have placed before Thistle years ago, question of which he is aware, questions Thistle have constantly refused to answer.

• The investigation into the roof scandal, major and widespread faults deliberately hidden by Thistle from residents.
• The illegal conspiracy in Thistle to countermand the requirements of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 and the subsequent investigation into the potentially massively expensive asbestos contamination applicable to ALL attics in ALL tenements in ALL of Toryglen, a possible hazard to life and limb thistle attempted to hide from residents.
• The investigation into the testing of attic water tanks, some without protective lids and Thistle’s lack of concern regarding Legionella bacteria in filth encrusted tanks.
• The investigation into the substandard window cills.
• Thee investigation into the rainwater plunging down elevations, applicable to both tenements and houses.
• The investigation into possible (and actual) dampness, as recently witnessed by some buildings being scanned for thermal variations. One resident witnessed a scan and was utterly shocked as it clearly suggested huge cold areas around all windows in a tenement block possibly (probably?) caused by sodden Rockwool insulation.
• The resident opinion survey undertaken recently by Arneil Johnston, the result of which, it is understood, unsurprisingly,  does not favour Thistle Housing.
• As mentioned above, the investigation into the E.ON contract.

Note that none of the above, not one single iota, was at the behest of Thistle. All of it, each and every investigation, is due to the fears and subsequent actions of Toryglen residents and, alas, every one of these fears, thus far, has been vindicated.

Residents await, with bated breath, the results of all of these investigations. For how much longer, no one knows but no doubt any results “shared” will be dripping with spin.

Conclusion
None of this had to happen.

Residents offered McColgan and Sprott their knowledge of the building trade and other work experiences gained over many years but they were ridiculed, refused, lied to and ignored by an arrogant, self righteous management who really, didn’t give  a damn about the estate, only their own selfish interests.

In fact, a number of residents were accused of “bullying” Miss Sprott (bully the voracious Miss Sprott – aye, like that’s believable) and that their presence within Thistle Fort was forbidden due to their “unacceptable behaviour” in attempting to “bring Thistle Housing into disrepute“. For that last piece, substitute ‘yer no’ gettin’ back in cos youse fun us oot’.

Well, look what’s happened and who exactly has brought Thistle into disrepute? You just couldn’t make this stuff up. With Thistle, you don’t have to.

They all forgot that their entire work existence should have been for the benefit of Toryglen residents but no. Their own selfish requirements, at all times, came first, second and last.

Well, when you fly wi’ the craws, you get shot wi’ the craws.

Sad really, as it could have been all so different.

One positive aspect does come from all of this debacle is that, in future, no matter how all of this pans out, the thus far existing and future proprietors of the Toryglen estate will be aware that its residents, tenants and owners, will no longer sit back and be abused.

Those days are gone.

The Evening Times Article

The letter referred to above, signed by the chairperson who is an external appointee put in place by the Scottish Housing Regulator, can be seen on Thistle’s homebrew website here

Evening Times Reader Comments