Avro Hollows Cooperation

At CDIRF, we believe in being entirely transparent and up front with you whilst protecting the anonymity of volunteers and residents. We have set up this page to keep you up to date..

1. All of the protections that we offer to our members and those that contact us will continue to apply. We will have to make some emergency tweaks as follows but we hope that they meet with your approval. Anything more contraversial will need to be put to members vote.

2. If you want a vote, please contact us to register either by completing our contact form, by telephoning, or Emailing. It would also be nice to have your company on our chat forum too - that's where votes take place. Membership is entirely free and always will be (there will be a small mileage and rental cost for collecting groceries and other essentials though but this will be cheaper than a taxi).

3. Please provide your address but not your name or other personally identifiable information when asking for a registration letter. We provide a Unique Registration Code - this is unique to you and must be kept confidential. We use usernames instead of your name on the forum chat site and you are encouraged not to use your real name or other identifiable information in your username.

4. Registering on the www.croydondrive.org.uk editorial section requires a separate account from the chat site at www.croydondrive.org.uk/forum - this is just a limitation of our systems - you can register with the same username and password though - sorry about this.

5. If you need help registering, please call us (number above), Email us, complete our contact form and also watch our Youtube videos available from the main www.croydondrive.org.uk by clicking "Back to Main Website" in the purple menu area above.

6. Please make sure that you register with a correct Email address (you can set a second one up but please make sure you forward Emails to your day-to-day Email address and whitelist our Email address (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. so Emails do not go to your junk folder). You won't be able to reset your password or be reminded of your username by our systems otherwise.

Tweaks to Our Usual Operation:

5. We will need to take your full name and address for the purposes of the Emergency Community Shopping Scheme, we will also need to see some proof of identity but we won't keep copies of your identity documents or take away originals - they will be returned straight away to you.

6. We will need you to sign paperwork to cover us including dealing with money provided to us for your shopping and change and also confirming that you will not hold us legally responsible. These records will need to be kept by us on an ongoing basis. They will not be shared with Avro Hollows' TMO, Northwards' Housing or Manchester City Council.

7. This covers us and you in terms of taking money from you to do your shopping if all other avenues of online shopping and support from friends, family and Social Services fail. By also ensuring that we have paperwork, there can be no confusion over what money you gave us and your change owed. We will also keep a copy of your receipts on file and you will need to sign to confirm that you have received your change before we can hand over deliveries. We will also prefer Paypal or bank transfer payments for record keeping. There is more information about the Emergency Community Shopping Scheme above.

8. We don't encourage you to trust neighbours with your money - there are some great people living on our estate but unfortunately people are not always who they seem (Linda Brokenshire, Estate Manager at Avro Hollows' Tenant Management Organisation has seen the Emergency Community Shopping Scheme Coordinator's Disclosure and Barring Board Check demonstrating a clean criminal record). You are welcome to check this with her by calling the Estate Office on 0161 682 5454 or Emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (the estate office telephone number is different from our telephone number).

9. The only time your name and address will be passed on is when you provide it, either directly to Linda Brokenshire, Estate Manager at Avro Hollows' TMO or when you complete our contact form to alert Avro Hollows' TMO (as you need to if you have symptoms so that Contractors can be alerted). This will also be shared by Linda with Northwards' Housing and, if appropriate, Manchester City Council.

10. No forum chat activity is reported to Avro Hollows' TMO, Northwards' Housing or Manchester City Council as usual - so rest assured, you can chat with confidence!

11. Although we have a steadfast rule, by vote, that anyone linked to Avro Hollows' TMO, Northwards' Housing and Manchester City Council cannot join the forum unless they have not been involved for 5 years (volunteers, staff, board members etc) and this will continue to be the case, we are not going to be uncompassionate and refuse help from the Emergency Community Shopping Scheme or emotional support if they are affected by the Corona Virus by telephone or Email.

12. This does not and will never be allowed to compromise your privacy and it is the right thing to do in an emergency like this so we hope you understand and also recognise that it won't make any difference to you.

13. We will need to update this as time goes on (as with all of the corona virus pages), there will be more to add as we correspond with Avro Hollows' TMO about the Corona Advice and offering the best possible support to all residents, member or not, ineligible for the chat forum or our editorial section or not.

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 (*highly motivated in going out of her way to cause trouble even though she has not been here very long) and, along with the Directors, the team ensure that the majority view of residents is never put forward and they won't think twice about harassing residents if they don't like you.

Employees are not disclosure and barring board checked and at least one has a serious criminal record, even though their employment at Avro Hollows' (which is paid for by Manchester City Council) could lead to them entering your home. "What happened to safeguarding" you might ask...

We take this moment to pay homage to the old Estate Manager who was a complete legend. More news on her leaving is due to hit you soon but it will make for very grim reading when we get her permission to publish it and we suspect the press will be very interested in Avro Hollows' TMO's behaviour too.

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. To this end, and more widely, Avro Hollows' TMO could not give a toss about what the resident majority want despite receiving around £250k a year of Manchester City Council funding. It's high time they went.

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 £250k a year grant funding (from Manchester City Council).

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