Find out more about the work of the resident’s’ association this year in our update.
Membership
The Pembury Estate Residents’ Association (PERA) has sustained and increased its membership over the past year. A breakdown of the areas of the estate our members live is below:
As can be seen above, the parts of the estate with the most members are Atkins Square, Dalston Lane, Tolsford Road, Hindrey Road and Pembury Close, collectively making up 64% of PERA members. Over the coming year PERA will be working to increase membership across the estate to ensure we are representative of the residents that live here, including reaching out to more non-leaseholders. PERA communicates with members through its website, email (through Mailchimp) and in the whats app group. Our emails are effective with a 48-63% open rate (average for marketing emails is 37%).
Meetings
Meetings have taken place monthly apart from August due to the summer holidays. This year we followed a new format to reduce administration and minutes taking, by alternating a general meeting with a themed meeting each month, for example service charges. Attendance at the meetings has been similar to the previous year (please note no minutes from Nov 2023 and March 2024 as themed meetings – no record taken of attendance):
Meetings have been held in person and this has generally been welcomed. Unfortunately the community centre does not have the facilities to enable us to offer a hybrid setup. Meetings have been held at 7.30pm and this does not seem to have altered attendance levels on the previous year (6.30pm).
PERA’s Actions
PERA is in the process of supporting residents of the estate regarding ongoing cleaning and bulk waste issues, service charges and fire safety concerns being experienced estate wide. The PERA Chair and Secretary have also assisted individual residents with their complaints and the Chair led an informative and useful zoom webinar on the Peabody complaints system as requested by our members which has resulted in a guide to the complaints system for residents. The PERA Chair has been working hard to hold Peabody to account and implement a tracking system for the concerns and repairs raised through PERA. The tracker can be found here.
Community Engagement
PERA organised a community event this year to bring together neighbours to support the families affected by the Dalston Lane fire. The event was well attended with over 70 guests and we raised £383.21 through donations of cash and supermarket vouchers for the families. PERA will decide how to best distribute these funds at the AGM. We are grateful to Peabody for the funding towards this community event to bring us together and thank all volunteers who helped on the day.
PERA Committee
PERA is grateful to its executive committee for its ongoing commitment to keeping the momentum going, keeping accurate records, meeting with Peabody to hold them to account and pushing forward the PERA agenda on behalf of the wider membership and the residents.
PERA welcomes additional members interested in joining the executive committee to help organise meetings and events going forward.
Financial update
For the past 12 months PERA’s income and expenditure is as follows: Financial Transparency – Pembury Estate Residents’ Association. PERA members can bring forward suggestions as to how to use the money for the benefit of the community, such as events and community engagement ideas. This year we used some of our funds to hold a community event to bring together residents to support neighbours affected by the Dalston Lane fire, in addition to receiving a community grant from Peabody for the event.
Lottie Story
Joint Secretary, PERA, September 2024 www.pemburyestate.com
Pembury Estate Residents' Association 