Location: 8a Belsize Court Garages, NW3 5AJ
Present: Sanya Polescuk (SP), Sorin Floti (SF), Silvie Jacobi (SJ), Josephine Field (JF)
Apologies for absence: Senka Vranicki, Lysine Bysh, Anne Black, Lily Chan (LCh), Barbara Orlando (BO), Niall Kirwan (NK), David Saxby (DS), Irena Seget (IS), Michael Jampel (MJ), Linda Chung (LC),
a) NW3 CLT Charity Registration
- Application submitted in early August by MJ, refused by HMRC late August.
- Reasons given: NW3CLT rules do not comply with HMRC’s charitable definition
- Advice from Wessex Community Assets, consultants who lead original
incorporation of NW3CLT Community Benefit Society: their/our model seems
‘not entirely-compliant’.
- Two options to resolve the problem:
1) wind down current Soc and re-form as HMRC-compliant Soc or
2) create new HMRC-compliant sister Soc.
1) seems very long-winded, requiring two AGMs, one with at least 1/2 of all
membership present or voting by proxy, followed by a solicitor-witnessed
application to FCA…
2)awaiting details of creating new sister Soc. / SP to report
Either way, they would assist free of charge.
b) Membership
- Current numbers stand at: 101? / LC to confirm
c) Finances
- Bank balance: £291.85 (incl £144.7 net donation)
- New members payment via Stripe, avoiding previous system (Jotform) lock-out.
Stripe reduces every £3 membership fee to £2.73 – ideas for improvement?
- Donation Button now included onto website, payments via Paypal – if the only way of avoiding their fee is to wire direct to our bank account, could that be made user-friendly / NK to advise
d) Communications/Lobbying
- Met with Tulip Siddiq, MP – primarily over sale of QMH by RFH (see Sites below)
- Meeting set up with Camden’s Neil Vokes, Development Director for 16/10/2018
- CNJ journalist wrote to enquire about Daleham Gardens
- Via National CLT Network, Lobbied our MPs ( SF to Tulip Siddiq and LCh to Keir Starmer) to
extend CHF beyond 2019-2020
- Social Media expert (twitter and Facebook) / SJ
- Local Council relations/SF & JF
e) Sites: Old Hampstead Police Station
- No further news from Abacus, the Free School that sought to redevelop.
- Site now empty for 4 years
- DS sought advice from developer involved in affordable and community-led
work. Developer view: 100% affordable development would attract the necessary development
grants and finances, as did recently-completed housing development in Southwark.
- Unfortunately, raising in excess of £15M to fund purchase of site would be near-impossible
- Awaiting further development from Abacus
Sites: Branch Hill Care Home
- Almax Group, the new owner/developer contacted NW3CLT via email.
They have been in pre-application discussions with Camden since May, advised by the Council to consult with interested parties from local neighborhood. They would be in touch re: dates. In the meantime, they ask us to remove ‘project’ from our website.
- SP replied explaining our concern is provision of community-led local affordable housing and Branch Hill is our feasibility project, just like other Projects on our website. We will update wording to reflect the Council is no longer the owner/ SP & NK
- Local Cllrs to be contacted to press for affordable housing on-site / SP
Sites: Queen Mary’s Home
- Two rounds of site marketing concluded, RFH Foundation Trust assessing options if to sell or develop direct.
- Group formed to engage w RFH Trust comprising reps of the following: Royal College of Nursing, Heath and Hampstead Soc, Hampstead Neighbourhood Forum, NW3 CLT, and a number of individuals previously involved in New End Nurses Home
- Application to spot-list the buildings submitted by Heath & Hampstead Soc
- Tulip Siddiq facilitating a meeting between the Group and RFH Board in October
Sites: 31 Daleham Gardens
- Our August campaign to retain affordable housing on site resulted in:
a) 11 new members,
b) donation of £144.7 net
c) open letter and question to the cabinet meeting from Tory and Labour Cllrs to retain 3 Social Units
- Our proposal is to retaining 3 Social units, add Community-led housing and restore the 8 market homes on site
- Our Application for funding to Community-led-Housing London for Feasibility Study Fund to develop the site as above, goes in 1stOctober 2018/ SP, SF, JF
