Tag Archives: Camelot

FEBRUARY 2: IT’S GROUNDHOG DAY WITH SCAMALOT AND BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL

Today is February 2, Groundhog Day at no less than four BCC Properties visited by a team of housing activists accompanied by The BRISTOLIAN

After an epic High Court case in February last year, which ESTABLISHED TENANT RIGHTS FOR ‘PROPERTY GUARDIANS’ (a precedent-setting case) against empty BCC property-leasing scam landlords CAMELOT, Paul ‘Wolfie’ Smith, Labour’s housing boss, publicly stated he would terminate all property guardian relationships with BCC in ‘due course’.
This was because of the SCANDALOUS STATE of disrepair the tenants were living in, the NIGHTMARE LEGAL CONTRADICTIONS that BCC had been implicated in, and the unbelievable levels of INCOMPETENCE, MALIGNANCE and NEGLECT by both Camelot and also the council’s housing management team of Woods, Hooper et al which had led BCC into this situation.

So imagine the faces on the team of housing activists when, revisiting 4 BCC properties just under one year on from the historic court decision, they discovered these sub-standard, dangerous properties STILL OCCUPIED EXACTLY AS BEFORE. Sstill in disrepair and STILL WITH NO HMO LICENSES (houses of multiple occupation require rigorous safety standard licensing), and also with the tenants therein STILL PAYING SLUM LANDLORDS CAMELOT BOGUS ‘RENT’ AT BCC PROPERTIES! Not only that, but the team discovered employment agency, MERIDIAN, STILL SUB-LETTING FROM CAMELOT many months on AFTER they were exposed in both The BRISTOLIAN and The Nazi Post for their employment/rent scam and poor treatment of employees on BCC premises. Once again, these CAPITALIST CUNTS were found to be still DOCKING WAGES DIRECTLY from their workers on the premises to pay this spurious double-rent!

We estimate that there may be 150+ PEOPLE STILL LIVING in unsafe conditions on ‘Property Guardian’ run BCC properties in Bristol, most paying rent to these FRAUDSTER middlemen who’ve taken them over.

Yes, it’s Feb 2, and Groundhog Day for Bristol City Council! SO WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON, WOLFIE, 1 FULL YEAR ON? We demand that you make a new public statement.

At The BRISTOLIAN we demand:

That Bristol City Council FORCE Camelot and Ad Hoc to IMMEDIATELY CONFORM to the HMO license regulations at its properties that it is still leasing.
That BCC RECOGNISE ALL who are still living on these properties as DE FACTO COUNCIL TENANTS, following the decision in the Roynon v Camelot case of Feb 20 2017. This farce has gone on much too long to make anything else acceptable.
That BCC no longer pursues such OUTSOURCED SCAMS under dodgy ‘licenses/tenancies’ with private companies, whether these are ‘property guardian companies’, ‘homeless charities’, ‘affordable homes builders/property agents’ or anyone else, and instead EMBARKS UPON A CAMPAIGN OF ESTABLISHING EMERGENCY SOCIAL HOUSING UNDER DIRECT BCC CONTROL.
* We encourage all tenants of either Camelot or Ad Hoc to contact BCC’s Tenancy Relations to enquire into their rights and the legal precedent; to contact BCC’s Housing Environmental Health about their living conditions and the building’s HMO requirements, and to legally withhold rent until these repairs are carried out. Eviction notices given to you by Camelot or Ad Hoc should always be submitted to prior scrutiny by Tenancy Relations or the Avon Law Centre as to their legal validity.

STOP PRESS – two Broomhill EPH evictions 11AM 16.08.17, including an illegal one of a very ill young woman

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PRESS STATEMENT

The Real Reasons Why Broomhill Elderly Peoples Home (EPH)
Was Placed Under Occupation <

This statement refutes the spurious claim made by Director of Housing Cllr Paul Smith of Bristol City Council (BCC) in the Bristol Post, August 10 that the remaining guardian-tenants at Broomhill EPH were ‘standing in the way’ of the council’s noble mission – allegedly by occupying the building, preventing its demolition, and the building of 10 social housing units. This is a deceitful manipulation of the facts, which we will now present.
Background Information

Following the crash of 2008 and subsequent austerity, many supposedly unviable BCC public buildings fell into disuse, including schools, care homes, leisure centres, fire stations etc. Later on BCC leased these buildings to two ‘Property Guardian Companies’ – Camelot and AdHoc, under the knowledge that these companies would, on a temporary basis, house renters (known under the legally ambiguous term of ‘guardians’) therein.

BCC then promptly forgot about the buildings, their occupants, and their original plans for demolition, while Camelot and AdHoc took advantage of the situation to make a fortune out of charging rent to hundreds of people priced out of Bristol’s private renting racket in sub-standard-to-outright-dangerous BCC owned properties.

However, following the Roynon v Camelot case in Feb 2017, which established that all guardians potentially had the full rights of tenants, BCC terminated its contract with both Camelot and AdHoc with effect from Christmas 2017, with the understanding that the companies would evict all residents by this date.

Points and Demands

It is in this context that we wish to make the following seven points:

As owner of the properties concerned, Bristol City Council has a duty to properly re-house all the guardians it left to the tender mercies of Camelot and AdHoc. Because there was no provision made, despite assurances given by Cllr Smith to the contrary, for protecting all guardians during the transition back to BCC control. This is simply unacceptable and a blatant reneging of BCC’s word.

Also the tenant legally evicted today was the whistleblower who first brought this scandal regarding Camelot’s behaviour out into the open so that BCC could take action against the corporate criminals operating on its property. Is it Cllr Smith’s moral duty to now wash his hands of him and let him be kicked out into the street, from a BCC owned property?

In the case of the second tenant, she is a young woman who is recovering from a serious illness, and in addition she was kicked out illegally. Camelot are being told as a legal warning that she has a right to go back in as this goes to print. BCC simply cannot tolerate these cowboy evictions on its conscience.

While some of the ‘guardian’ properties are clearly best demolished due to their age or unsuitability, in the current housing crisis it makes more sense to bring the remainder up to standard again and use them as temporary homeless shelters, but this time regulated under direct BCC control and not ‘leased’ out again to third parties of any description.

In relation to point 5 above, Broomhill EPH was selected for occupation as being a prime example of such erroneous BCC policy. Broomhill is a relatively modern and sturdy building, yet is scheduled for demolition and supposed replacement by 10 ‘social housing’ units at some indefinite point in the future. Why is ‘cash-strapped’ BCC not questioning the time taken and money required for such a task, while the necessary repairs and refurbishing required for 40-50 quality units of homeless accommodation could be carried out in the building as it stands, and for just a fraction of the cost and time. Why is this not being done?

Finally, under the 1996 Housing Act, in the case of a publicly owned building scheduled for demolition, if an evicted tenant has not made him/herself ‘intentionally homeless’, then the local authority that owns the building has the legal duty to assist him or her in finding alternative accommodation.

In addition, we make the demand that any properties that BCC keeps in operation as homeless accommodation must NOT be leased to either private profiteers or to the many so-called charities that use the discredited ‘guardian licensee’ contract or its equivalent.

WHINY TWAT SEEKS PRIVATE SECTOR MOVE?

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Whiny twat: working seven days a week to fuck up our city

Whiny council twat, Barra Mac “NUGGET” Ruairi, jerking himself off under the title ‘Strategic Director of Place’ and struggling by on about £130k a year for hacking our public services apart was forced by the Rev Rees in November to attend a public meeting in Henbury about the cuts.

Many who attended openly EXPRESSED THEIR FRUSTRATION at clowns like Mac Nugget filling their boots at our expense while cocking up everything in sight.

Mac Nugget replied, “I’m an exec leader with SIGNIFICANT SALARY who moved from Sheffield to serve the city – seven days per week – genuinely doing my best. I work with £100million contracts, miles of roads, planning, 38 refurbished schools. It’s a significant job with over 1,000 staff. We need qualified people to deliver this kind of work.

“I chose to work in public but could work in the PRIVATE SECTOR. We have trouble recruiting as the private sector take our staff. We don’t just work 37 hours per week but put in as much time for the city as we can.”

Mac Nugget was noticeably light on detail about any of his ACHIEVEMENTS. So here’s some of the things he’s been working seven days a week to achieve:

An arena over two years behind schedule, 20 per cent plus over budget that doesn’t have anyone to build it; a Metrobus bus scheme that nobody wants with no one to run it that’s also over budget; unnecessary concreting over of bluefinger land and allotments at Stapleton for the Metrobus; destruction of hundreds of trees for the Metrobus scheme; endless traffic congestion that continues to get worse; collapsing city docks infrastructure that has culminated in the ongoing closure of Princes Street Bridge; cancellation without notice of vital bus services like the number 51 last year; occupation of council properties by guardian companies that don’t comply with his own council’s licencing and health and safety rules or the law; the proposal to build a five metre wide road through Victoria Park; an inexplicable £9m deficit in his Property Services Department run up between March and June last year; an ongoing failure to deliver smart ticketing on public transport.

Then there’s the risk of failure to the major infrastructure projects he’s managing. Such a failure is currently listed as ‘LIKELY‘ by Bristol City Council

Please private sector take this useless twat. He’s all yours

YE DAMNED CHRONICLES OF SCAMALOT #10

YE DAMNED CHRONICLES OF SCAMALOT, BOOK TEN
Verses 33-34: Attempts to bribe Guardians

xxxiii. In recent days, a most righteous pressure has been placed on evil Property Guardian Company CAMELOT to much belatedly conform to Environmental Health regulations at ye properties they lease from Bristol City Council. But woe! This hath only led to scandalous attempts by Scamalot to BRIBE Guardian-Tenants!

xxxiv. THE BRISTOLIAN can reveal that in order to avoid having to service another shower at one property under EH regulations, Scamalot offered £650 to a Guardian-Tenant in return for leaving ye property, callously stating that this person was “worth less than a shower”.

More verses of this woeful tale of wickedness shall be recounted in Ye Chronicles of Scamalot, Books Eleven to Twelve, run exclusively in THE BRISTOLIAN

SCAM-A-LOT IN COURT: “A device not a scam”?

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Paul LLoyd: his job title doesn’t always describe what he does?

Fascinating day at the BRISTOL CIVIL AND FAMILY JUSTICE CENTRE today as Scam-a-Lot, Bristol City Council’s partner and dodgy property guardian company at the centre of multiple housing scandals in the city, ineptly tried to prove the tenants of various Bristol City Council properties under their control weren’t tenants at all.

Scam-a-Lot’s barrister, Elizabeth Fitzgerald’s, opening gambit was to explain to the poor judge, Euan Ambrose, that Scam-a-Lot in Bristol is not one company but two entirely separate ones! The first, CAMELOT PROPERTY MANAGEMENT LTD, apparently had a deal with Bristol City Council to protect and secure various empty properties for them for a fee and had the right of possession to the building.

The second company, CAMELOT GUARDIAN MANAGEMENT LTD, meanwhile, had an arrangement with various licensees, including the defendant, to occupy the building in exchange for a licence fee. This company, however, had no authorised possession of the building.

Scam-a-Lot’s barrister then explained that the legal status of the defendant as either a tenant or a licensee was a matter that sat entirely with CAMELOT GUARDIAN MANAGEMENT LTD. So regardless of the outcome of the case, their other company Camelot Property Management Ltd had the right to IMMEDIATE POSSESSION of the building without the tenant/licensee defendant as this company had no legal or contractual obligation to them.

The visibly bemused judge explained that he thought he had turned up in his court to rule on the fairly NARROW POINT of whether the defendant was a licensee or a tenant and wondered aloud whether Camelot’s baroque internal management arrangements were relevant to the case? He appeared no less bemused when Camelot’s brief helpfully explained to him that these arrangements were “A DEVICE BUT NOT A SCAM“!

Rather neatly setting the tone for the first witness Paul Lloyd who described himself as the Regional DIrector of Camelot Property Management Ltd. Although he did later admit that job titles “DON’T ALWAYS DESCRIBE WHAT WE DO“!

Under cross-examination Paul identified various personnel who had signed documents and correspondence to licensees as being employed by CAMELOT PROPERTY MANAGEMENT LTD, which slightly contradicted Scam-a-Lot’s QC’s earlier claim that licensees were managed by ANOTHER COMPANY altogether.

LLoyd was also slightly vague about THE SOURCE of documents regarding the defendant he had presented to the court. Many of which had different content and different dates to the documents apparently handed to the defendant by Scam-a-Lot over the years, which the defendant had separately presented to the court.

“My documents may have come off the system,” explained LLoyd. “Or they may have come from a file. I can’t remember. It was a long a time ago.”

“It was only six months ago,” the judge politely interjected.

“Did you retrieve the documents yourself?” the defendant’s barrister enquired.

“Possibly some of them. I may have asked others to retrieve some of them. I travel a lot,” a flummoxed Lloyd explained. “The intern gave me the emails.”

Indeed, these mysterious documents might have fallen out of Lloyd’s BACKSIDE during a particularly unpleasant LARGE SHIT for all the sense we could make of where he managed to obtain an entirely different set of documents to the ones given to the defendant by Scam-a-Lot over the years.

This FIASCO over documents reached peak farce with the cross examination of Lloyd by the defendant’s barrister about the defendant’s TERMS AND CONDITIONS document that he was given by Scam-a-Lot in 2014.

Scam-a-Lot’s document presented to the court by Lloyd was dated 2016 and contained a different set of terms and conditions to the defendant’s document dated 2014. Why could this be?

Who knows? Because Scam-a-Lot’s barrister leapt up when this question was raised and quickly shoved yet another document under Judge Euan’s nose. “These are the correct terms and conditions,” she announced.

“I see,” said Euan. “And are they different to the one’s the defendant has?”

“Yes,” she replied, “but only the frontsheet.”

So that’s all right then. As Judge Euan pondered THREE different documents purporting to be the defendant’s terms and conditions as a licensee with Scam-a-Lo set before him.

What strange webs Scam-a-Lot weave.

The case was adjourned until 8 February (possibly while Judge Euan recovers from his migraine).

BRISTOLIAN PUBLISHER DEMANDS TO BE SUED!

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Steve Norman has written to all of Bristol City Councillors today demanding that they take LEGAL ACTION against him immediately for “revealing the truth about their relationship with Camelot and Meridian,” our bent council’s close business partners.

Camelot and Meridian are the CROOKS housing vulnerable people and migrants in inadequate conditions in rat infested council properties that don’t meet the council’s own basic standards of safety. Unusually, these buildings have been handed to the businesses FREE OF CHARGE by council property boss Robert “Spunkface” Orrett.

Steve has once again openly published and distributed the statement, banned yesterday from the Full Council for for being – according to council officers – “DEFAMATORY“.

We continue to await word from the idiot Rev Rees and his legal eagles or the wankers at Camelot that they are taking action against our open publication and distribution of this DEFAMATORY MATERIAL, however.

Is there a problem of some sort? Like, perhaps, everything the statement says is true? This might also explain why council officers REFUSED yesterday to let the resident change their statement and remove any allegedly defamatory clauses the officers cared to identify? (Thus far these legal pro’s have identified ZERO defamatory clauses to anyone)

It’s a cover-up!

Steve’s email is below:

From: steven norman
Sent: 14 December 2016 09:38
To: Mayor and all councillors

Subject: RE: WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

BCC have threatened legal action against anyone revealing the truth about their relationship with Camelot+Meridian, i’m sharing this! So has any ONE OF YOU GOT THE COURAGE TO ASK WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE OR WILL YOU ALL DO YOUR NORMAL TRAIT AND BURY YOUR HEADS LIKE OSTRICHES OUTSIDE THE BIG HOUSE ON THE GREEN?

MESSAGE FOR THE GREAT LEGAL EAGLES OF BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL SUE ME COME AND GIVE IT A GO LETS SHOW THE PEOPLE OF BRISTOL THE TRUTH

Address For Service Of Papers Mr Stephen Kenneth James Norman, Antona Court, Antona Drive Bristol BS11 9RL

“I am a resident/property guardian at Broomhill EPH, owned by Bristol city council (BCC) and formerly an elderly persons home. Currently and for the past 3 years, while I have been living here, it was leased to Camelot property management LTD, a private company, providing a short-term security solution, by renting rooms within what would otherwise be vacant properties.

However, Is it appropriate for Bristol City council to have dealings with Camelot property management? Camelot property management entered into a contract with Bristol city council in September 2013. There have been between 5 and 20 guardians living at Broomhill EPH since then. Against the law, with the knowledge of some within Bristol City Council, Camelot operated Broomhill, without a HMO license for 3 years (needed when more than 5 unrelated people live there. Broomhill is a large HMO having many rooms and over 3 story’s). After the eventual visit by the councils EHO and subsequent improvement notice, no works were done, up to the expiry of the improvement notice and yet Camelot were allowed to operate without a HMO license from November 2013 until November 2016. The property has never met the requirements of such a license and even now after the license was granted, there is an improvement notice issued for substantial works to make the property up to the required standards. This notice has now run out and no works were carried out, until a week ago, when strip lighting was installed, so we are still living in dangerous and substandard housing conditions, with no heating, fire safety measures, or hot water.

The members of the public living there as property guardians have suffered numerous incidents of harassment, including physical, verbal and racial abuse at the Hands of Camelot staff members. Illegal fines have been issued for sums of money with no legal binding and pressure has been applied for guardians to pay these or be issued with notice to leave properties. In addition to this Camelot have committed multiple breaches of their contract agreement with Bristol city council. Failing to supply hot water, removing showers, not maintaining the fire alarm system, removing fire doors and lighting to name just a few.

In my license agreement with Camelot I have paid council tax for over 3 years. I, personally have been informed by the council tax office, that there is no liability nor account, for any council tax to be collected for Broomhill EPH, as it is still a council tax exempt property. Should all guardians who lived at the property over the past 3 years receive this money back, as the property is still exempt for council tax? So why does Bristol city council have any dealings with such an unscrupulous, negligent, potentially fraudulent and therefore criminal company, with a flagrant disregard for their tenants welfare? After all, Hackney Council in London terminated its contract with Camelot in 2015 in similar circumstances.

Clearly regarding not issuing the mandatory license for an HMO, a department within Bristol city council have been in collusion with Camelot for not enforcing their own regulations and therefore the law. In the last 6 months we have discovered that Camelot in another Camelot run BCC property has used forced illegal evictions, with 4 Camelot employees removing a woman from a property late at night in her night clothes, being permitted to take her medication from the fridge, but none of her other property. Another Camelot run BCC property has been sublet to a third party (Meridian), housing as many as 40 of their workers with no agreement/contract in place whatsoever, collecting their rent in cash per person weekly. Other properties have unresolved issues with rat infestations. Also there are several allegations of criminal acts carried out by Camelot staff contrary to the protection from eviction act 1977, due to be heard in court early 2017. In light of this information we would like to know what Bristol city’s response to this is?

We would like to request BCC recognize Camelot ‘guardians’ as council tenants and not licensees. We also would like BCC to acknowledge that some of their workers wrongfully colluded with Camelot property management, particularly over the HMO license. It is up to BCC whether they re-house all residents currently, in their Camelot-run BCC properties, with decent accommodation and legal contracts.

Please can I have a full written response to this statement?”

THE STATEMENT THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO READ:

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The Rev Rees – just back from kowtowing to the anti-free speech human rights abusers of the Chinese Communist Party – today banned a voice of the voiceless from his own council chamber in Bristol and then stood idly by while his security goons assaulted the speaker for complaining!

Our self-styled ‘mayor for equality’ silenced one of the ‘the unequal’ he’s supposed to be standing up for and instead sided with his bent property department run by sleazeball Robert “Spunkface” Orrett and a dodgy business bleeding our public assets dry. Maybe they’re the people he really works for?

The ‘Buy-to-Let’ Mayor prevented a tenant from the council’s former Broomhill Elderly People’s Home delivering a statement regarding the conduct of the council’s business partner, Camelot, who are running the home as a lucrative residential letting scam (Bristolian passim).The company have possession of at least SIX Bristol City Council empty commercial properties and are renting rooms to vulnerable Bristolians in all of them.

Do the Rev Rees and his useless new head of legal not want us to know the truth about the Dickensian conditions they expect us to live in? Why else would they conspire to declare that the statement was ‘defamatory’ and could not be read out in his council chamber?

Well, bollocks to that. Here’s the statement in full. As usual, we invite the Christian hypocrite Rees and his useless shower of lying legal cunts to initiate proceedings forthwith …

I am a resident/property guardian at Broomhill EPH, owned by Bristol city council (BCC) and formerly an elderly persons home. Currently and for the past 3 years, while I have been living here, it was leased to Camelot property management ltd, a private company, providing a short-term security solution, by renting rooms within what would otherwise be vacant properties.

However, Is it appropriate for Bristol City council to have dealings with Camelot property management? Camelot property management entered into a contract with Bristol city council in September 2013. There have been between 5 and 20 guardians living at Broomhill EPH since then. Against the law, with the knowledge of some within Bristol City Council, Camelot operated Broomhill, without a HMO license for 3 years (needed when more than 5 unrelated people live there. Broomhill is a large HMO having many rooms and over 3 storeys). After the eventual visit by the councils EHO and subsequent improvement notice, no works were done, up to the expiry of the improvement notice and yet Camelot were allowed to operate without a HMO license from November 2013 until November 2016. The property has never met the requirements of such a license and even now after the license was granted, there is an improvement notice issued for substantial works to make the property up to the required standards. This notice has now run out and no works were carried out, until a week ago, when strip lighting was installed, so we are still living in dangerous and substandard housing conditions, with no heating, fire safety measures, or hot water.

The members of the public living there as property guardians have suffered numerous incidents of harassment, including physical, verbal and racial abuse at the Hands of Camelot staff members. Illegal fines have been issued for sums of money with no legal binding and pressure has been applied for guardians to pay these or be issued with notice to leave properties. In addition to this Camelot have committed multiple breaches of their contract agreement with Bristol city council. Failing to supply hot water, removing showers, not maintaining the fire alarm system, removing fire doors and lighting to name just a few.

In my license agreement with Camelot I have paid council tax for over 3 years. I, personally have been informed by the council tax office, that there is no liability nor account, for any council tax to be collected for Broomhill EPH, as it is still a council tax exempt property. Should all guardians who lived at the property over the past 3 years receive this money back, as the property is still exempt for council tax? So why does Bristol city council have any dealings with such an unscrupulous, negligent, potentially fraudulent and therefore criminal company, with a flagrant disregard for their tenants welfare? After all, Hackney Council in London terminated its contract with Camelot in 2015 in similar circumstances.

Clearly regarding not issuing the mandatory license for an HMO, a department within Bristol city council have been in collusion with Camelot for not enforcing their own regulations and therefore the law. In the last 6 months we have discovered that Camelot in another Camelot run BCC property has used forced illegal evictions, with 4 Camelot employees removing a woman from a property late at night in her night clothes, being permitted to take her medication from the fridge, but none of her other property. Another Camelot run BCC property has been sublet to a third party (Meridian), housing as many as 40 of their workers with no agreement/contract in place whatsoever, collecting their rent in cash per person weekly. Other properties have unresolved issues with rat infestations. Also there are several allegations of criminal acts carried out by Camelot staff contrary to the protection from eviction act 1977, due to be heard in court early 2017. In light of this information we would like to know what Bristol city’s response to this is?

We would like to request BCC recognise Camelot ‘guardians’ as council tenants and not licensees. We also would like BCC to acknowledge that some of their workers wrongfully colluded with Camelot property management, particularly over the HMO license. It is up to BCC whether they re-house all residents currently, in their Camelot-run BCC properties, with decent accommodation and legal contracts.

Please can I have a full written response to this statement?

SEASON’S GREETINGS FROM SCAM-A-LOT!

Today is February 2, Groundhog Day at no less than four BCC Properties visited by a team of housing activists accompanied by The BRISTOLIAN

YE DAMNED CHRONICLES OF SCAMALOT, BOOK TEN Verses 33-34: Attempts to bribe Guardians

YE DAMNED CHRONICLES OF SCAMALOT, BOOK TEN
Verses 33-34: Attempts to bribe Guardians