GLE Renewal Board February & March 2026 Update
The GLE Renewal Board is in place to oversee and support the delivery of the 10-year programme of Housing improvement works on the Golden Lane Estate.
The Board meets monthly and membership includes residents nominated by GLERA, Councillors, and officers of the Corporation. It is chaired by Councillor Anthony Fitzpatrick or Deputy Chairman, Adam Hogg. In addition, the Board consists of:
- Common Councillors Ceri Wilkins (Deputy) & Sarah Gillinson
- Chair of GLERA, 1 tenant and 1 leaseholder
- COL Officers are Peta Caine (Director of Housing), Wade Gregory (Head of Major Works) and Judith Finlay (Executive Director Community and Children’s Service).
The Board agreed to circulate an update on key areas for discussion after each meeting.
February 2026
The Golden Lane Renewal Board met on Friday February 27th for a ‘deep dive’ into the detailed programme plan for the renewal of Golden Lane over the next decade.
The session was designed to ensure that members, residents and officers all have a common understanding of the plan and the logic behind it – and have a chance to identify potential challenges before they arise.
Everyone in the meeting felt it met those aims – with particular thanks to Greg Wade and Nick Condon for putting their detailed, technical understanding of the work at our disposal for the afternoon.
Together, we identified 7, big potential risks and issues that the board will pay particular attention to:
- Communication: ensuring that residents all have a strong understanding of this complex plan, and are kept fully up to date with progress throughout
- ‘Decanting’ (or residents leaving their flats for up to 6 weeks for the works to take place): ensuring there is a clear and sensitive decanting plan in place, and that residents understand what is going to happen, when, how they will be supported, and that all tenants will be able to return to their previous property
- Procurement: ensuring a sensible balance between quality and cost throughout the procurement process
- Decision-making: ensuring a robust – and quick as possible – decision-making process in the Corporation, to keep works moving
- Leaseholder contributions: ensuring a fair and transparent settlement for leaseholder contributions to the works, that takes account of decades of neglect to repairs and maintenance
- Supporting the delivery of the programme at each phase: providing a sounding board at each stage of the works – ensuring that the programme is accelerated as quickly as possible.
- Funding the whole programme: actively managing the ongoing funding risk, considering the length of the programme, the macro – economic environment and its impact on the construction industry.
If you would like to see a similar, detailed, walk-through to the one we went through on Friday, please see Greg Wade’s video from last year here.
March 2026
At the March 19th meeting of the Renewal Board:
- The Board confirmed the plan for a technical workshop with residents who have technical and industry expertise in housing to review the 10 year renewal plans for the Golden Lane Estate. The workshop will take place on Wednesday, March 25th. The purpose of the workshop is:
– To enhance resident understanding of the technical design options considered and their relative pros and cons
– To understand how alternative options would impact the Programme constraints (quality, time, budget, feasibility, risk)
- We heard a positive update of the visit by this technical experts group of residents to a pilot flat in Bayer House to view the new glazed windows.
- Good communication with residents is central to the success of this work. The Board discussed feedback on the new communication partner Concilio. We agreed how we will work in partnership with Concilio in future to ensure that they are communicating clearly and proactively with residents about the Renewal works.
- The Board discussed the accelerated window replacement programme for Cuthbert Harrowing and Crescent House. We clarified that, for the remainder of the Golden Lane Estate, work will be undertaken to assess the benefits of the refurbishment vs replacement of windows including considering lifelong costs.
- The Board talked further about leaseholder costs and that work is continuing to assess how future service charges will be calculated. We agreed to return to this subject as a priority at upcoming meetings.
