The main Castellain Road gate has been out of action for well over a week now, during which time a succession of contractors have been in and out of the Garden trying to identify the problem. It's finally been diagnosed as water damage to the main control panel, which unfortunately is now beyond repair & will need to be replaced.
Our Managing Agents have apologised for the ongoing inconvenience to residents but are hopeful that the new part will be delivered in a few days' time.
Meanwhile freeholders are reminded that My Blockman is the prime channel of communication with the Agents & it is freeholders' responsibility to ensure that lease-holders are kept in the picture.
As we start the year, this blog shares a few important updates and reminders from the Board with residents, as our next full Newsletter will not be sent out until the beginning of April.
We hope you had a lovely break and are looking forward to the year ahead. We’re excited for another year of enjoying our shared garden together and hope you've already spotted some of the new plans such as the mini orchard.
As was communicated to all freeholders, the garden gate has not been functioning for the past few days. Contractors have been on site for the past days attempting to fix it. We hope for an update tomorrow morning and will communicate as soon as we do.
We’re happy to confirm that our Bonfire Night celebration will be happening on 7th November, and we’re already looking forward to it.
Sadly, our traditional Summer Party cannot yet be confirmed, as we still don’t have any volunteers to help organise the event, which puts it at risk of being cancelled. We’ve asked in the past and haven’t had any responses so far, so we’re once again putting the call out. If you’d like the Summer Party to go ahead this year and could spare some time to help, please do get in touch via the Contact Us section of our website.
We’d also like to gently remind everyone of our managing agency’s nuisance policy, which has been in place since they took over management of the garden. This helps ensure our space remains enjoyable for all.
From this year onwards, the Board will be operating with a new rotating Chair, whereby the role is held by a different Director every year. This year, Marc Scrimshire will be taking on the role, following Peter Cross stepping down a few months ago. We’d like to thank Peter for all the time and work he put into the role of Chair for so many years - fortunately Peter has offered to stay on the garden committee.
As always, thank you for being part of our garden community, and we look forward to another great year together!
Our gardeners have some exciting new plans in store for the garden this Spring including a "mini orchard" which will include a mix of apple and pear trees for residents to enjoy. A few of our trees have suffered recently and we are overserved by "crab apples" some of which are struggling, so the plan is to introduce a few "real" fruit trees in a bed halfway down the Warrington side. Our gardeners will try to move the crab apples to another sparser bed on the Sutherland side to see if they fare better. The new area will be underplanted with a mix of bulbs including alliums, daffodils and tulips and, all being well, we should all be able to enjoy some wonderful extra colour this Spring s well as a good crop of fruit next Autumn! The health of all our trees is currently being reviewed as part of the 10 year masterplan review including a few which have been infected by bugs so we are waiting for the outcome of of these reports from both our own and Westminster experts.
