Relocating Gas Meter to Faccade. Tower Hamlets Homes does not Answer, Cadent is ready to work
Hello,
Arround a couple of weeks ago, I wrote to Tower Hamlets Homes about moving the gas meter from the interior of the flat to the facade (they haven't answered).
Cadent's surveyor has come to inspect the works and said it is fine to do, and they are ready to start the job if I manage to get a paper signed from my neighbours above.
There is also a neighbour who has done this job. Both my neighbour and I are in a ground-floor flat in a block of flats. I recently bought this flat, and the person living in the flat currently is a tenant, so I couldn't ask the flat's owner what process they followed.
I asked Cadent about the Freeholder consent and they were sort of puzzled. They just said, "yes, let them know".
The form they sent for my neighbours is a form to give consent to do the works (a small excavation), but my neighbours are also leaseholders or the council freeholders. It is true they will need to suffer a few hours cut on the gas, but that's all. They are not the ones to give consent really. I was verbally told they should just agree to having a gas cut for a few hours and that the form was about that, but it is not.
Do you guys have any experience dealing with this sort of situation? I am worried I go ahead with Cadent without written consent from Tower Hamlets Homes and, one day, they come with questions, retrospective permissions and/or legal actions. But they do not answer my emails, and I couldn't find a phone number to call them.
I have also written to them for different enquiries, and they sometimes take just a few days to answer (this has happened only once with an easy one); sometimes they take weeks or months, and oftentimes they just do not answer at all.
How to face this situation? What if I give the go-ahead to Cadent without written consent? Any way to make them answer?