Dear Residents, Leaseholders & Landlords,

Welcome to the 1st Spring VRA Newsletter - you will all have now seen your new committee's first actions on your behalf - the new service charge we negotiated for you with the Freeholder and their Managing Agents for the year 2007 - for the first time, showing a substantial saving over previous years. With your support we will be able to agree further savings for you for the previous year, as always however; we work best with your input.

April 2007 At this time the paramount word on everyone's lips is "Regeneration". There has been a lot of misinformation with regard to the Rowner Regeneration Partnership and newspaper sensationalising to make "good copy" regarding bulldozers and residents being forced to sell their homes against their wishes.

There are NO bulldozers waiting to knock down your home around you tomorrow or the next day. At a meeting immediately after the press release and newspaper articles on 20 March, it was confirmed that if the residents did not want anything to happen to their homes then it would NOT happen.

John Butler of Portsmouth Housing Association could not confirm what part of Rowner they were referring to for regeneration, The Village Rowner is less than half of the total area of Rowner but he did confirm that at this time there were:

Michael Lane of Hampshire County Council confirmed the only thing he could say at this time was "here is a partnership" "The Rowner Renewal Partnership" (RRP) consisting of the following bodies:

All those, representing the partnership and the local authority, attending the meeting confirmed NOTHING would be done without full consultation with the residents and leaseholders.

REMEMBER..

A gosport was a voice tube used by flight instructors in the early days of naval aviation to give instructions and directions to their students. The name "gosport" was derived from Gosport, England (originally God's Port), where the voice tube was invented.

The VRA is your Residents' Association ~ Use your voice through your Residents' Association you are living in "God's Port" if you want it to stay exactly as it is then let your voice be heard - tell us what you want, let us work for you.. There is a committee member for each and every building - speak to them - we will shout your wishes from the top of the tallest building until we are heard. We have the opportunity to take control of the situation...The VRA are currently considering steps that will allow us to take control of the situation for the residents and we will send you more information in our next newsletter.

Let's work on getting the roofs repaired/renewed, the lifts reinstated and the whole of our Village Rowner Community pulling together in the same direction

SuZan Veale ~ Chairman