Cllr Meric Apak

• I HAVE for some time been swapping emails with Cllr Meric Apak, Camden’s cabinet member for better homes.

By Camden Council’s own admission, they were unable to provide a full caretaking service to their estate residents during the pandemic, and he informs that their new enhanced caretaking service due to have been introduced on April 6 2020 was finally introduced on September 28, some six months late although Camden Council continued to collect estate residents caretaking service charge.

He tells me that his own estate hadn’t seen a caretaker for some weeks, so I asked if he would be reimbursing these residents.

Residents caretaking charge is now £10-£26 per week. He recognises that residents were being furloughed and some had even lost their jobs but so far he is refusing to sanction a refund.

His last email informs me that “he would never ask for a rebate during a pandemic” and no longer wished to discuss the matter.

Well Cllr Apak should realise that he has not been furloughed, has not lost his job and in April received a hefty £10,000-plus increase in allowances and salary,and even claimed £180-00 cycle allowance.

So perhaps he is in a better financial position than most of the people he is suppose to represent. I would like him to reconsider.

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