Electro-web comments:
I’ve already written about Brighton [and Hove] Council’s new communal TV aerial for my building, which cost a mere £13,000 to install.
But today I got an even bigger shock through the post.
I live in an 11-storey block, and there are a pair of lifts. The lifts are old, yes. But they work.
Occasionally, they break down. But they’re soon fixed (usually a day or so). Today, I learned that the council have put out a contract to have both lifts replaced.
The cost to me, personally, is estimated to be over £10,000.
That’s a cost to the block of almost £500,000. Half a million pounds. I live in one of half a dozen blocks on this road.
So that’s £3 million cost to the council and its leaseholders in one easy swoop. Ludicrous.
The document the council sent me has two interesting figures. They say the estimated on-going maintenance costs before the works is £2620 per year.
After the works, the on-going maintenance cost to the block will be £2430. This means that a half million quid lift upgrade will save just £190 a year in maintenance. Or £4.44 annually for my share.
The sensible thing to do when deciding whether to replace something expensive is to check if it’ll cost more to keep the old one going than just buy a new one.
For example, you wouldn’t spend £1000 fixing an old car if a new one would only set you back £2000 and not need any work for 5 years. This is called ‘payback time’: how long before the new one pays for itself compared with repairs on the old one.
In the case of my lifts, it’ll take 2000 years for the maintenance savings to be worth the cost of replacement.
Where I’m going to find ten grand, I have no idea. The galling part is that there’s never any consultation. They never discuss whether it should be done in the first place, just decide they’re going to do it.
There’s no thought about timing (i.e. during the biggest recession this country has seen in decades, one which is likely to get worse) and no option to have it deferred.
The council decide that it needs to be done, and so it’s done. Though how they prioritise this themselves, during reduced income, service cut-backs and budget savings, I’ve no idea.
I pay them almost £900 a year in ‘maintenance’. Why they don’t make that £1200 a year and keep a slush fund I don’t know.
The sensible thing to do might be to charge us all for major works, but in arrears – so each month for the next ten years would have £40 added on for the new lifts (this would also spread the costs fairly to people who move in after the works have been done).
But in the past 8 years I’ve had to find £5000 for a new roof, £3000 for new water tanks and £1000 for a new security door. Plus the world’s most expensive TV aerial and redecoration costs. And now my £10,000 bill.
Oh, and £1000 a couple of years back when they spent WAY over the estimated annual maintenance in replacing fire doors. Not that the fire doors were actually replaced, but they said they were and who am I to argue?
Maybe they were replaced with ones identical to the originals. Speaking of fire doors, they are apparently also well within their rights to tell me that my private front door – one they fitted in the past – no longer complies with fire standards and I need a new one. At my own cost (they’ll fit one for £800, no chance).
The council will, of course, loan me the money for our luxury lifts. But there’s no way I’m going to give them the 5% interest they’d charge (variable, and who would trust this shower not to bump it up to 15% next year?).
I’d rather stick it on the mortgage, though I’ve no idea if my bank will extend it by that much given the state of the economy.
When you own a home outright, you have a choice on when to do major works. You can patch up and get on with it while you save, you can defer some things and not others, you can prioritise jobs and at least have the knowledge that next year there’ll be something to pay for. Not when you’ve got a profligate landlord, staffed by idiots.
A bit of Googling suggests a 10 storey lift should cost about £100k to install. This shouldn’t be a big job, it’s replacing an existing one, so there should be little or no structural work to do.
Anyone know whether the £500k for two in one block price is even remotely legit? Especially given the economies of scale in replacing them all at the same time. Seems huge to me…
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