…and it all came tumbling down AGAIN!!

1,508 DAYS – FOUR YEARS + 1 MONTH + 16 DAYS
since Thistle’s mismanaged Major Works Programme started on 7th January 2016
1,180 DAYS – THREE YEARS + 2 MONTHS + 24 DAYS
since 30th November 2016 when “all of the works to all of the houses in Toryglen will be complete“. Today, Sunday 23rd February 2020, still incomplete, work proven to be shoddy and more importantly, dangerous and now possibly hazardous to life and limb with millions of pounds required for rectification work

Yesterday (Saturday 22 February 2020) afternoon
This at the beginning of Kerrycroy Street:

Ridge tiles flying everywhere from the badly built roofs. Badly as a builder’s report on all the roofs says that they are all faulty. They don’t look like much when they are up there or even smashed on the ground but mid flight in one piece before they are broken, they are some size and heavy, with another couple ready to plummet.

Alas, for Toryglen residents, that wasn’t all as only minutes later,
More in Ardnahoe Avenue:

Insecure chimney pots replaced during the incomplete and dangerous Major Works Scandal at the same time as the shoddy and dangerous roof, tumbled down, bounced off the weakened roof and then into a pensioner couple’s garden. Fortunately, they didn’t bounce off the pensioners or their wee dug or any other resident otherwise the result would have been grim. Not that Thistle cares.

Monday, 24 February 2020 
Ardnahoe Avenue, two days after the chimney pots tumbled down:

It took Thistle only just more than two days to find a bit of tape and put this sign up. Too bad it does nothing to protect people from the shattered tiles on the roof immediately above the entrance. “Storm Damage”? It must have been storm damage which made all of the roofs unsound and unsafe three and a half years ago and still, to this day, remain unfixed and dangerous.

Not that they have done anything regarding taping off in Kerrycroy Street. Yes, Thistle are committed to the safety of residents except that, as always, the self seeking management deflect any responsibility or blame from their overpaid and vastly under performing selves for all of the roofs being substandard to such an extent that the proven to be faulty roofs are incapable of withstanding a bit of wind and rain. Is that not what roofs are for? They ‘managed’ the Major Works Fiasco. The lied. They obfuscated. They failed. Why are they still employed?

Tuesday 25 February 2020
After the events – what reactionary Thistle does best – rattles out the excuses
In an email in response to a resident’s queries regarding the chimney pots crashing down at 1 Ardnahoe Avenue, the expensive interim director, Bob McGuire stated, “The chimney pots affected were exposed due the direction and severity of the prevailing winds on Saturday.” Here’s a wee lesson for Mr McGuire, who, like the rest of the failed management none of whom stays in Toryglen and know little to nothing about the estate – the “prevailing winds“, which are westerlies, have blown into, around and amongst these buildings every day since they were erected more than sixty years ago and, indeed, undoubtedly for thousands of years prior to that. There has never been a single recorded event such as chimney pots flying around such as this in those entire sixty plus years. Not one, not even during Hurricane Low Q in January 1968, Hurricane Stephen in December 1998 or Hurricane Bawbag in December 2011.

Mr McGuire further states, “We were not contacted re the chimney pots that had fallen at 1 Ardnahoe Avenue“. Just a tad ingenuous as Thistle regularly and constantly scans this blog and social media such as Facebook, so the chances of them not knowing are minuscule.

The weather was miserable but far from being unusual for winter in the west of Scotland, here, the end of February, as can be seen in an example exactly three years previously on 23 February 2017, here. The outstanding difference being is that the real problem was poor chimney and roof work and that the pots had not been correctly mounted. As Mr McGuire knows fine well, the majority of chimneys were faulty and repaired only after resident pressure (and one falling down into a garden) as are all of the roofs. Mr McGuire, in his short tenure in Thistle Fort, has not only done nothing about this dreadful situation but has actively held back the results of investigations into the  pathetically poor and dangerous quality of chimneys and roofs. Reactive sticking plaster rather than proactive (and cheaper) efforts. The Thistle way.

A well known smart mouth from ‘Team Thistle’, referred to elsewhere as ‘Angry Pants’, is reported to have commented that the shedding of roof tiles and pots was due to high winds and rain, missing out, of course, that her money grabbing, proven inept, “ah’m no’ technical” ability deficient bosses were the cause of the poor workmanship as their management competence, in all aspects, are rank, allowed every roof in the refurb programme to be faulty.

What, rainy and a bit of blow in February, the coldest month of the year? In Glasgow? Eh? That’s never happened before. Except for here and every other February in every other year.

One thing to note though – any time there is a high level risk, such as over the weekend when a sign fell at M&S in Argyle Street, the surrounding area is cordoned off to reduce risk. In Toryglen, nope.

Why did this happen?

Short answer – poor and dangerous workmanship, known full well by Thistle Housing and all other interested (or more accurately, non interested) parties.

In the first case, contrary to inaccurate Facebook gossip, the ridge tiles flew off the building then smashed onto the pavement and road only a few metres away from a young lady out walking her pup. Those waiting at the bus stop at the end of Kerrycroy Street/Prospecthill Road heard the crash and came running to assist. Only by sheer chance, no one was injured or worse. Note, however, that other ridge tiles are teetering and may well also come crashing down.

In the second case in Ardnahoe Avenue, two chimney pots plummeted from the roof into an elderly couple’s garden and pathway, a pathway which is used by couple to push a wheelchair (as well as their wee dug).

Thistle’s emergency repairs (their pals in City Building) refused to do anything about it as the weather was so dreadful that it was too dangerous for their (so-called) workmen.  Maybe they were all at Parkhead with Thistle yesterday? Ah, never mind the residents.

Oh, not entirely accurate. Thistle did dispatch their handymen to sort out the situation. They brushed up all of the broken tiles, bagged them and ran away. See, if there’s no evidence, it didn’t happen. Problem sorted. Only thing is, residents took the pictures first.

A bit of history

On 22 September 2016 (note the date), Toryglen residents notified Thistle Housing’s  management that the chimneys and roofs of the delayed blocks seemed to be not quite right. The term used then was “dodgy”.

In short, residents, who are well versed in building works and associated situations, were ignored, then were subject to a trail of lies from Thistle’s self confessed “non technical” Operations Manager, the vastly overpaid (and since derided) Daniella Sprott, backed up by an equally money grabbing fool and Sprott’s mouthpiece, Jeff Poulter, the self exclaimed but completely fake “Clerk of Works”.

Previous similar incidents caused by faulty roofs and chimneys
(known by Thistle’s failed management)

Been here before!

Just before midnight on 31 August 2018, poorly built concrete chimney slabs fragmented and fell into residents’ gardens and pathways further up Ardnahoe Avenue.

See here for more.

Not that Thistle gave a toss, so much so that Daniella Sprott, Operations Manager (failed) refused a plea from her immediate drone to attend the scene. No one from Thistle’s rapacious management or their cowed, crony management committee cared. One wonders why Sprott indulges her self with a so called company car which sees nothing of Toryglen other than the road in and the road out.

The several incidents of high level failures in blocks all due to the shoddy work undertaken by an itinerant, bottom dollar untrained foreign workforce who buggered off as soon as they could once their grubby palms had been crossed with euros.

Then it happened again!

See more here.

A Clear Failure of Management, One of So Many

Crap management whose only concern was their fat salaries. That would be Grace McColgan, the corrupt ex director who was finally booted but only after sucking the gelt from Thistle, hence residents, for another year whilst she feigned a made up illness. On second thoughts, maybe not made up. Maybe it was just guilt or was it simply that she had been exposed?

Thistle’s never explained and grossly failed Major Works Programme handed to their pals at E.ON in a contract agreed to by idiots at Thistle Housing and without as much as any penalty clauses to protect the association, all of which funded by £6.5 million of taxpayers’ loot and millions from owners who had been bullied and conned into parting with their funds with not as much as a meeting or any form of consultation. They had to as they had been lied to by Sprott and her drones that if they didn’t cough up the loot, in cash, with only a few days’ notice, they would have grant funding removed, then they would be sued for around £13,000.

Through residents’ efforts since September 2016 illustrating the multiple failures by Thistle’s profoundly ignorant management, three years later, after the incident on 31 August 2019.

Did Thistle’s Desperate Management Respond?

Nope. They prevaricated, they lied, they ignored Toryglen residents. The Thistle way.

Last summer (2019) it was announced by Bob McGuire, Thistle’s interim director (after Grace McColgan, the previous director got her marching orders) that various investigations had been put in place to examine, “block by block”, the shoddy workmanship, i.e. the roofs (which are all faulty), the roughcasting, the insulation, the window cills, as well as other sources of problems. A residents’ poll was also taken by Arneil Johnston so as to illustrate residents’ opinions, etc of Thistle Housing. Mr McGuire’s employers, Savills, were to undertake an investigation into the E.ON contract.

The results of all of these so called investigations, at great cost to the association and therefore to residents, were to be published last September.

Despite frequent promises from Mr McGuire, none of the results of these investigations has been released. Why not? Is there something to hide?

Meantime, bits of roofs fly off. So far, no one has been injured but if it comes to the situation that it does happen, the responsibility will be with Daniella Sprott, Jim Naismith, Bob McGuire, the Scottish Housing Regulator, Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, the local councillor and The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, the local MSP, all of who are well aware, together with a list of other profoundly shocking workmanship, that all the roofs are faulty.

As far as insurance cover is concerned, forget it. If a claim is necessitated, there is no insurance company which will entertain a claim where there are pre-existing conditions, such as known faulty roofs and when it comes to it, attics jammed packed with building rubble and asbestos contamination as well as the multitude of uPVC plastic doors in closes, all of which are a potential fire hazard.

To conclude, click here for the video taken three years ago today, 23 February 2017, of the first part of the Major Works Scandal, then almost three months late and incomplete and today, 1,180 days late, still incomplete, even shoddier and much, much more dangerous.