At the moment, it seems that nobody knows what is going on. GEM visits residents’ flats and talks about major works and replacement of equipment; GEM managers are talking about water softeners and Camden Council, saying that none of them has authorisation to do so.
At 18:13 Alex Lloyd (Contracts Manager from GEM) stated in his email:
Afternoon All,
Operatives have carried out chemical descaling works on the hot water system today to improve temperatures, and these are now climbing slowly.
We will be returning to site tomorrow morning to cut out 2no inline water softener fittings, which could potentially affect circulation of hot water around the site, to eliminate any further possible causes of low temperatures being delivered at peak times.
I will update following on from these works.
I appreciate the inconvenience this has caused residents and apologise.
Many Thanks,
Alex Lloyd
Immediately after that Michael Capper from Camden Council replied at 18:38 with this:
Alex you do not have authority for this work and such I am instructed gem to cease with this proposal
Then Keith Harris replied to Michael Capper with this:
When can you get to site to instruct how we improve the site for your residents
Keith Harris
Managing director
Gemebs ltd
At 18:58 Curnock TRA sent an email to Michael asking the following:
Dear Michael,
What is causing the problem with the hot water and what is the plan for restoring the service? What are the timeframes for a resolution?
I receive too many contracting messages. A GEM employee told a resident the following (resident’s understanding):
“… they are working on issue from this afternoon and have been given the go ahead and money from Camden to do job, it’s big job and parts to be replaced but should be up and running by this evening or tomorrow, that’s what I was told
They need to drain a massive system and replace parts, hopefully will be on by tomorrow”
Could we please have some explanations?
Kind Regards,
Chair – Curnock Street TRA
At 19:02 Tony Castle sent us this:
Good Evening all
Please allow us some time to address this internally.
I will send an update to this email trail with a solution as soon as possible
Sorry for any confusion caused.
At 20:11 we received the following:
Good Evening
GEM engineers will be attending site tomorrow to hopefully resolve these ongoing issues. There will be four senior engineers on site from GEM services and have been instructed to do what needs to be done to resolve the issue. I will be updated throughout the process too.
Please accept Camden’s apology for the earlier technical conversation, repairs of this nature are complex and often need input from different areas of the business to come to the correct solution.
However, we accept it should have not been in such a public forum.
Hopefully these will bring matters to a close on this email trail, our residents will have working hot water and we all have a nice weekend.
Tony Castle
Head of Repairs and Operations
London Borough Camden
Supporting People
London Borough of Camden Holmes Road
London N1C 4AG
RELATED ARTICLES
2024-03-01 – Fly tipping & Gates left open by GEM
2024-02-28 – No Hot Water For Many Days
2024-01-20 – Award Winning Failures & Rent Increases This is how Camden Council is wasting public money