Hall of Shame
Rokhsana Fiaz (Mayor of Newham)
In view of the fact that I have been through 15 years of total misery at the hands of Newham's housing department with regards to the constant noise disturbances coming from the lifts and had exhausted every avenue to get this resolved, with Rokhsana Fiaz claiming to care so much about the problems Newham housing residents have encountered, I had high hopes when I referred my grievances to her office.
I originally spoke to someone by the name of Michael Bennett who referred the matter to the head of lifts Geoff Williams, who pulled his usual stunt of claiming that the lifts were well maintained, and presented evidence in the form of some lift maintenance reports that apparently proved this. He did acknowledge the noise that occurred when the lifts started and stopped at a floor which he claimed was minor and caused by the lifts breaking mechanism. He also announced that the Managing Director of Griffin Elevators, Ian Griffin, was visiting my block the following week to inspect the lifts to see if any technical adjustments could be made to reduce the noise, and I was promised an
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update once this had happened. Suffice to say, the update never arrived, and all that has happened since that visit is that the lift noise has got worse.
I was obviously unhappy with this, so I told Michael that I would like a meeting with the mayor who referred me to someone else within the Mayor's office by the name of Eleanor who told me that my grievances were not sufficient enough to warrant such a meeting and that should I still not be happy with the situation, I should refer it back to the complaints department. Yes that's right, I have been through 15 years of utter misery as a result of this, causing me to lose 5 teeth from the stress. I had referred it to the complaints department, my housing officer, the head of lifts, the noise team, the head of maintenance, a Newham councilor, the assistant director of housing, the director of housing and finally the Mayor's office to no avail, but was told that if I was still not happy, that I should take it back to the complaints department. I expressed my dissatisfaction to Eleanor with regards to this and asked her exactly how much more ridiculous this carry on needs to get before I was to qualify for such a meeting or what she was expecting the complaints department to do this time that they didn't do the first time that was beyond the authority of the director of housing. This was initially ignored, but after a reminder email, I was promised she would look into the matter further and get back to me; suffice to say, she never did and I am now back to square one again.
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Rokhsana Fiaz is fully aware of the problems with Newham's housing department and has done nothing about them throughout her tenure as Mayor, and based on the fact that she refuses to speak to me about the horrendous problems I've encountered over 15 years after having exhausted every other avenue to get this resolved clearly indicates that she has no interest in doing so.
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