CDIRF - Welcome

We are the Independent Resident's Forum for the Croydon Drive outsourced council estate in Newton Heath, Manchester. M40.

Switch 2 Heating and Hot Water Emergency

If you have no ability to top up your Switch 2 hot water and heating meter, you can call 03333212010 and they will "link" (legally bypass) your meter so that you can pay at the current rates that you are charged at, at a later date and get hot water and heating in the meantime.

Doing this will cost you no more and Manchester City Council have made it clear that if you have run out of credit, this will be dealt with as an emergency. You can use this telephone number during the week and outside of office hours. If you need help, please use our contact form.

Tenants wondering where the forum is can find that by clicking here and you can read Avro Hollows' TMO propaganda for a laugh here. If you'd prefer to hear it from the Residents then please do read on.

On our estate, we apparently have 312 flats (although one is a lift office and another doesn't exist for some reason). Anyway, what we do have are glorious flats (most with out of date dilapidated kitchens (where did the sink go Dianne?) and bathrooms with no showers into 2020).

This situation is slowly changing with Jackson & Jackson having been commissioned oversee the replacement of kitchens and bathrooms, carried out by Sub-Contractors. After a couple of months break due to the Corona Virus, they are now back on site. We wil soon have a dedicated section of the website for Jackson and Jackson works - most of the content will be how they could improve the project and actually consult residents. It is not endorsed by them.

You may have noticed that our Corona Virus information has disappeared from the front page. You can find out more by visiting the CDIRF Corona Virus area from the "Resident Links" menu.

Thank you for visiting and welcome.

Further Information..

The estate comprises of four tower blocks and two rows of houses split into two flats (there are no cows but most of these flats do smell of cheese due to the damp in them). Some of the flats across the estate contain 1 and, shockingly, 2 and 3 bedrooms.

Avro Hollows' Tenant Management Organisation purport to manage the estate on behalf of Manchester City Council, in association with Northwards housing (Northwards' Housing will, however, deny all knowledge of this). The estate is most definitely not run for the benefit of the local community with some residents describing the estate as an "open prison".

To find out more...please read our article "more about the estate" below.

Who We Are..

This website and its online community was set up by a resident on the Croydon Drive Estate who may or may not be closely related to C.G.B. Spender (the truth is not out there). It is entirely free to use and to become a member and it always will be. Personally identifiable information is not collected or stored protecting the anonymity of members. We only publish the tower block of the residents (so the person writing will be 1/72 or 71 people - dependent on the specific tower block).

It is not a breach of a resident's tenancy agreement to join Croydon Drive Independent Residents' Forum. The right to set up tenant groups is in fact specifically protected within resident's tenancy agreements.

The starting point for the forum was to create an online presence. The forum itself has the ability for members to send private messages (not read by the forum admin) and Members are encouraged to use their common sense in remaining anonymous and protecting themselves online. There is a reporting feature above all posts should anybody be concerned about the content - particularly where it is discriminatory or hateful - humour is of course allowed within reason.

Members are encouraged to have their say and provide feedback on the existing forum sections (including the popular "The Vent" and various general interests categories) and to request new ones. This also extends now to website content. We strongly urge residents to register using the unique registration code letters, most recently posted through doors in August 2019 by one of our kind elves.

The Croydon Drive Independent Residents' Forum is, unfortunately, not open to Contractors, Employees or Volunteers (including members) of Avro Hollows' Tenant Management Organisation, Northwards' Housing or Manchester City Council to protect the integrity of the forum and the anonymity of members and access is not permitted from locations run by them to protect the security of login details.

To ensure that our security policies are upheld vigorously for the benefit of members, we regularly lookup IP addresses that are logged when members log in. Our independence policy was ratified by members in 2018.

The Croydon Drive Independent Residents' Forum is set up by residents to further the interests of residents. It's that simple. A large part of that is to take the current Directorship (Avro Hollows' TMO) to task where they fail residents through causing as much embarrassment as possible.

If any residents struggle to register (you need to sign up using the register option), please do use the contact form link above (or the contact link on the forum itself).

If you are a resident who has not yet registered - what are you waiting for? A very warm welcome awaits!

About Our Estate..

The estate has security gates at every entrance where many tenants cannot get in and out of all of the gates without pressing the buzzer (although thieves can) and it has so many cameras that it puts Big Brother to shame. All tenants have their mugshots taken to aid with tracking them from the moment they leave their flat until they leave the estate (perhaps further?) and there is a 24 hour live feed available to lucky viewers on Channel Commsec.

Cameras are monitored by Commsec Security (when it suits them - incidents that tenants report are rarely ever captured) who, until at least very recently, controlled the access controls in Greater Manchester Police buildings - what do you know! Until recently, it was commonplace for gate intercom calls to go unanswered (including in 2020 to 7 fire engines attending a small kitchen fire in Lancaster Court), particularly in the winter, leaving tenants to get soaked. Commsec Security are, however, excellent at bellowing over the multiple speaker tannoy system from their offices about 1.5 miles away and regularly using foul language at the weekend when the Estate Manager isn't working..

There are entrance intercoms on each tower block. On two of them, tenants do not ever get to speak to their visitors as the dial pad has been removed and replaced with a camera, and, on the other two, Commsec Security like to randomly divert intercom calls to them when they get bored. On all four tower blocks, Commsec Security like to have a conversation with your guests instead, particularly when your food (and takeaway driver) is getting cold.

The MGMT..

We do have a highly motivated Estate Manager (and her Assistant) helping residents day to day but it would seem that the Directors above her, running the estate, are probably to blame for Avro Hollows' TMO not putting tenants at the heart of key decisions on the estate. To this end, our position is that the Estate Manager, and her Assistant are not an issue.

Our residents have had issue after issue with getting repairs carried out and with the way in which Manchester City Council and Northwards' Housing have managed new kitchen and bathroom provision on the estate. It is touch and go whether anybody answers the lift breakdown alarms and the quality of connection is so poor that they can't hear you when they do answer.

Contractors work without consulting residents and are as disruptive as possible. Complaints go nowhere when forwarded to Northwards' Housing or Manchester City Council. To this end, the Directors do not care about the interests of residents and nor does Manchester City Council or Northwards' Housing.

The Board..

The TMO board are extremely selective about who they invite to their meetings (you'd have more chance of being invited to bank with Coutts) and the majority of tenants do not get a look in or a say on anything at TMO board meetings where they are no longer announced for fear of tenants protesting.

Avro Hollows' TMO are certainly not there to make the experience of living on the Croydon Drive estate a "really happy one" unless you are one of a select few on the board with access to around £90k at present and around £250k a year grant funding (from Northwards).

Welcome to the Croydon Drive Independent Residents' Forum where we do things differently and respect each other.