IRS Public Meeting
I was at the public meeting on Tuesday March 9 to discus the upcoming switch off of analogue signals by Virgin Media in Stevenage.
To ensure everyone in tower and low rise blocks will still be able to receive good TV signals, Stevenage Homes will be installing Integrated Reception Systems (IRS).
This will give access to Sky channels and Freesat. You will need to pay the extra to receive them. It will also give access to Freeserve. Something not mentioned in the original leaflet I was sent.
The Cost
Leaseholders will be charged an undetermined amount (but no more than £250) for the installation of the IRS.
Tenants will pay the extra in their rent. Something they may not realise. At least, there was no one at the meeting complaining about it. I wander how tenants would respond if they were offered £250 in cash as an alternative to an IRS installation.
Hostility
There was a lot of hostility from leaseholders. The hostility seems mutual. At one point the chair of the meeting, Councillor Ann Webb JP recounted an unpleasant conversation she had with a homeowner. I have no idea what the purpose of the story was.
In vain, leaseholders pointed out that they did not want an IRS, they did not need an IRS. They had already paid for (and had planning permission) for their own satellite dishes.
They might as well have argued with the Borg.
An IRS is necessary because there is a limit to the number of satellite dishes that can be placed on the side of a building.
No one explained why this limit exists, other than a dislike of “satellite rash.” This is thinly disguised technophobia.
Confusion
I think they said when they take your old satellite dish off the wall, they would give you a new one, but that you will not be allowed to put it up. This makes no sense to me at all.
In the end, it was made clear that the decision had been made and if anyone didn’t like it, then tough.
Councillor Webb agreed to another meeting for leaseholders. Details to be arranged.
UPDATE: As Reported in The Comet.
Popularity: 100%
I have been working away from home for the last few months so when I arrived back home the other day to find cable hanging from my roof and a letter regarding the new IRS system I was totally confused to why I have to have this system since I have a SKY system that I am totally happy with. I remember my wife mentioning this to me over the phone but I never really took any notice since I have the SKY system. What will happen to my Sky dish and how much will this cost me and do I have to have it?????.
“Do I have to have it?” – Yes, if you live in a flat. But at least one person is currently going through the complaints procedure. See http://www.stevenage-leaseholders.org.uk/2010/you-are-going-to-pay-less-than-250-for-five-free-tv-channels/
“What will happen to my Sky dish?” Not sure, but at the public meeting the contractor involved said they will remove it then give you a new one. But this does not make much sense.
“How much will this cost me?” No more than £250. But I still have not been given a final amount.
I just wanted to follow up on my last post about the new IRS system. The fitter turned up on Saturday and connected me to the new dish on my block of flats and then cut the cable on my old SKY dish and now my service from SKY has a very poor blocky picture and my freeview tv in the bedroom can only find 14 channels instead of the 36 that I had before. RUBBISH SYSTEM………NOT HAPPY…..
Sorry to hear that Matt.
Have you been in contact with Stevenage Homes about this? What did they say?
Hi Tim.
No I haven’t rang them yet but I will this week. I also think the giant aerial mast looks out of place on our block, It’s huge……….Bring back my (small) SKY dish.
Regards Matt….
My response to their invitation to talk on the phone about this is below for people to view – I have taken out any personal info since it’s irrelevant to other people.
———— start ——————
Re: IRS installation at …. – Ref: ….
Dear nnnn,
I do not wish to telephone an individual regarding my complaint about the above matter since there will be neither traceability nor record of the discussion. It also does not allow for rational debate and is likely to result in nothing but mutual frustration.
I wish to escalate this complaint to ‘Stage 2 of the complaints procedure’ regarding IRS installation.
I have the following specific responses to make regarding your response in your letter dated dd mm 2010:
1) Re: para. 1 – There is no satellite dish on our property, nor do we or our tenant, subscribe to a satellite channel or intend to. Therefore the number of satellite dishes on the block is irrelevant.
2) Re: para 2 – The Virgin media cable service includes many channels and services, including a wide choice of radio and TV channel options. Therefore the range of channels being offered is immaterial.
3) Re: para 3 – planning permission would be required under specific circumstances (relating to the size and number of existing dishes), most importantl of course is if we or our tenant required a satellite service, which is not the case at the moment, nor the foreseeable future. Therefore the issue of planning permission is irrelevant.
4) Re: para 4 – In what way is it an improvement? It is not going to change the services or the environment in which our tenant is living, since they will not be using the IRS, neither are future tenants guaranteed to use it.
5) If you are offering house owners a choice of not installing the service then you must offer flat owners the same choice.
6) RE: para 5 – The cost is relatively irrelevant, it is the automatic nature of assuming that we are prepared to pay for something that neither us or our tenant want or need or indeed will use, that is unreasonable.
There are other methods of receiving TV signals, an indoor aerial being the most likely, in addition our current tenant doesn’t even own a TV set, so has no need of any TV service.
Should their attitude to TV change, or a new tenant moves into our property, they will be able to make the same choices that anyone else in the country will be making, with the exception of having a satellite dish installed – and even that is hardly an impossibility since they could always seek planning permission should this unlikely scenario be the only option available.
As far as we can see there is no reason for this service, and imposing this additional cost on your landlords is an unreasonable measure.
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Thanks for sharing Paul. It will be interesting to see what reply you get.
Hi All,
Well, fairly predicatably, two weeks after sending off my reply we get a letter (well actually 2 – each signed by different people) that skirts most of my points and concludes with a ‘project cannot be delayed due to the impending digital switchover’ statement. This I find annoying since that will mean that Stevenage residents will simply be in the same situation as everyone else in the country – it’s nothing special, and yet they make it out to be some sort of event horizon.
I am still not happy with their responses, since they have still not answered the question as to why we should want it in the first place.
It’s almost as if one of the people at Stevenage Homes gets a back-hander from the contractor or something – they want to progress regardless of what their customers actually want.
Particular gems are:
‘Aesthetically the block will also improve’ – yes I can see that having cables stapled to the outside of each property will help there! They will go with the lovely new external gas pipes.
‘regulations state .. no more than 2 sat dishes’{paraphrased} – and after you have got rid of all the current dishes then it means that 2 more can be added no?
‘IRS is free’{paraphrased} – not to me it isn’t, and I can buy a LOT of freeview boxes for £170
‘cost is irrelevant’ – heh, they decided to misread this, what I actually said in my letter was that I thought their approach was unreasonable.
Anyway, I wrote off another letter (they still wanted me to phone up!) to escalate this, though I suspect that the whole procedure is only a way of getting me give up.
Anyway I concluded my letter as below:
‘I remain dissatisfied with the ‘Stage 2’ reply I received, since most of the points in my previous letter have not actually been addressed.
Neither I nor my tenant need or want the IRS. My current tenant does not even have a television set or receiver.
Services are available from freeview at far less cost than the IRS,
The IRS does not improve the aesthetics of the block of flats, indeed any additional visible cables will negatively impact the visual appearance of the block.
Your removal of choice, and refusal to consider your leaseholders views is not at all conducive to good will.
What I want is to be able to opt out of the IRS installation – after all it is my flat and any damage to it whilst an unwanted and unnecessary system is being installed would, I feel, be tantamount to criminal damage to my property by Stevenage Homes.
It would also help to know exactly what the IRS is supposed to provide, since at the moment there is no compelling case for why the system is being thought of as a good thing by Stevenage Homes.’
So we’ll see what happens next.
Paul
Hi Paul, having any more luck with this? They are comming to fit my box this Friday afternoon so I will be able to comment on the service then.
Just got a reply from Lorraine O’Brien the Cheif Executive – basically they are going ahead regardless – mainly due to the short notice from Virgin and the ‘improvement’ to the block.
Another factor is that they believe that a freeview box and internal arial wont be sufficient to recieve channels.
They can also do this legally apparantly – though I still feel that as far as consulation goes it’s more along the lines of Ghengis Khan than anyting else.
My next option is to contact the local government Ombudsman, but I’m getting to the point of thinking that it will all be over and doen with (aside from the paying for it) by the time they read my letter.
Paul
My family watches sky on our freesat system and lithuanian tv on another satellite as my partner and one of our sons is lithuanian. we stopped watching virgin tv years ago. If Stevenage homes take our dish it will have negative effect on our family as we are bilingual and my son and partner will no longer be able to view tv in their native language when they wish to. This has not been factored in and must surely be a breach of some European law
The public meeting was some time ago now but I think they said they would not remove a satellite dish if it was used to tune to a foreign station. You may want to contact Stevenage Homes about this.
Maybe I will, but I’m a bit afraid it might make things worse. my own experience with stevenage homes in the past tells me that they have a monopoly on what they do and are a law to themselves. you have to fight through local counsellors before they even start acknowledging complaints or criticism and even then the service they provide in my opinion is poor. With regards to the tv service, I have a letter now saying to contact the company to install the box for the new system. It says they’ll remove our dish at the same time. So maybe I just won’t contact them and it will stay up. If we lose the foreign channels it will really have a negative impact on our family and there is not yet any backward law that says citizens must only watch transmissions in the English language, but as there is no mention of foreign satellite in the literature they sent out perhaps this is the way they think. So, I’m not sure what to do yet , so I’ll wait to see what happens….
I have contacted Stevenage Homes and they said they won’t allow additional dishes for foreign channels because “what if there is more people wanting to put extra dishes”???. And they also said they won’t allow dishes bigger than 43cm. How ridiculous is this??? Normal SKY mini dish is bigger than 43cm. I’m Slovakian a I really feel discriminated by this. Can someone help on this please?
The public meeting was some time ago now but I thought it was said they would not remove a satellite dish if it was used to tune to a foreign station. But it was not said by a Stevenage Homes spokesman but one of the contractors.
What can we do. Two options I can think of:
Complain to a local councillor – I know LDP local councillors.
Go to the press – I do have a contact at the Comet but would probably need at least one person willing to talk to the paper.
Any other suggestions?
Well I have been in contact with the press and they are not interested.
The journalist who was at the meeting says that as far as she can remember it was always the case that that you would have to take a foreign language satellite dish off because yoiu can only have two on a building. (I think it was four).
So this is not a new story as far as they are concerned. People complaining about Stevenage Homes isn’t really news.
I have also been in contact with the people who are install the cables. He said he will contact the project manager then get back to me….
I just talked to Mike Creed of SCS the contractors who are taking down the dishes and installing the cables.
He checked with his project manager, and he tells me they are not going to remove foreign satellite dishes.
If you want to check this with him call 08448 589780. This is the number you call to make an appointment to have the cable fitted.
He also said that people with sky multi-room will not need to have the satellite dish removed.
Well I knew that SCS is not going to remove foreign dishes but I’m worried that someone from Stevenage Homes will remove them.
Well they did come and fit the cable on Friday. It was all well and good. Apart from there is no signal to test as yet as there is no power to the IRS yet.
I’ve been in contact with Councillor Robin Parker, he has tried to cut through the confusion for us. This is the content of an email he sent me on 2 June 2010:
Hi all,
I found a decision by the Leaseholder Value Tribunal which ruled a Birmingham lessee is not liable to contribute towards the cost, largely due to the lack of need to replace equipment that was working (and superior).
http://www.rpts.gov.uk/Files/2010/May/70003MEM.pdf
Tribunals do not set a precedent, but this is more than persuasive.
In the third minute from the meeting held on 14th April, it says the term of the lease permit them to charge this. Anyone know the exact terms to which they refer because I can’t find it?
I will not be allowing the installation in my flat, neither will I be paying for it. I will do exactly the same as they have done, and that is ignore their pleas.
If we all do this, they simply cannot deal with it and will more likely go away and shut up.
Ashe
Not everyone has an “improvement” clause in their lease. See the latest story. What year is your lease from?