The Buckstone Association exists to carry out the responsibility imposed on all owners of houses built on the estate since 1963 for the upkeep and maintenance of certain specific amenity areas within the estate.\u00a0 The extent of the estate was determined at the time by the area of land Miller Homes had then acquired for the development and includes the final stages of this development at Mounthooly Loan, Galachlawside, Galachlaw Shot and Whitedales, including houses built and sold by Cala Homes.\u00a0 The title deeds of these houses include an obligation to become members of the Association and to pay the annual assessment.\u00a0 The amount of this assessment is agreed by the members each year at the Annual General Meeting.\u00a0 A Committee is also elected at each AGM to carry out the policies determined by the members at the AGM.\u00a0 The body of rules that determines the conduct of the Association\u2019s affairs is contained in the Constitution and each member should be aware of this.\u00a0 Information should be passed on to the new owners when you sell your house but a copy is available on this website or may be obtained from the Secretary\/Administrator if you do not have one.<\/p>\n
The Association is not a residents\u2019 association in the widely recognised sense and is not a voluntary organisation.\u00a0 It does not organise local events and cannot claim to represent local residents as many are excluded from membership.\u00a0 For various reasons we are reluctant to extend our activities further into areas which should more correctly be dealt with by a general residents\u2019 association.\u00a0 However, the Association can act as a platform for the launching of community projects if the members express such a desire.<\/p>\n
AMENITY AREAS GENERALLY<\/p>\n
The Association\u2019s only responsibility is for the upkeep and general maintenance of the amenity grounds which are quite extensive.\u00a0 Contractors are engaged as relevant for this and the money to pay them by means of the annual assessment on all members.<\/p>\n
Recurring problems are dog-fouling, garden refuse being dumped, vandalism of trees and ball games.\u00a0 Dog excrement on some of the amenity grounds and footpaths is not acceptable under any circumstances and we request that all dogs are kept on leads.\u00a0 We have consulted the Council Dog Wardens for assistance but as they cannot be expected to watch the estate continuously it is really up to individuals to take action themselves.\u00a0 If the dogs involved (and their owners) can be identified an application may be made to the City Council for an order to prevent this continuing.\u00a0 Further information is available from Environmental Services Department (Tel: 529 3030).\u00a0 We do not wish to prevent dogs being walked on the amenity grounds but their owners must be responsible with regard to removing their dogs\u2019 excrement.<\/p>\n
Occasionally garden refuse has been left on amenity areas in the past, with those responsible hoping it would just ‘disappear’.\u00a0 The Council uplift garden refuse with other refuse throughout the year and the Association is not responsible for doing this.<\/p>\n
Please help to contain our costs by preventing children breaking branches off our trees, especially the saplings, a few of which require to be replaced each year, and from damaging shrubs by running through them.<\/p>\n
Children aged seven and over are not allowed to play ball games on the amenity areas.<\/p>\n
Rules regarding all of the above problems have been made and reaffirmed at various AGMs and it is accepted that the Committee are not themselves responsible for enforcing these rules.\u00a0 All members must assist with this.<\/p>\n
THE ROUNDEL<\/p>\n
The Roundel is the wood bounded by Buckstone Circle and the open field (maintained by the Council).\u00a0 This was initially included in the estate plan as amenity ground which could have involved us in fairly heavy financial commitments.\u00a0 Thanks to the efforts of our local councillor at the time, this wood was taken over by the Council from Miller Homes on the basis of our accepting responsibility for routine maintenance.\u00a0 This was approved at the 1993 AGM.\u00a0 The Roundel will remain as general woodland to which the local residents have been granted free access in return for carrying out this routine maintenance.\u00a0 Our agreement with the Council provides that the Council are responsible for the major woodland works including thinning and removal of trees, providing replacement trees and replanting as required and cutting a verge round the perimeter of the wood.\u00a0 We are expected to keep the wood free of litter, remove light branches and assist the Council with the planting of new trees.<\/p>\n
ASSESSMENT COLLECTION<\/p>\n
Our policy, endorsed at successive AGMs, is to pursue payment of the assessment by all members and we will, if necessary, raise Court action for recovery.\u00a0 We believe our collection procedures operate effectively and we are grateful for the assistance provided by our solicitors, Messrs. Allingham & Co. of 4a Buckstone Terrace.\u00a0 We have adopted a stance that it is a waste of effort calling regularly on known bad payers to try to obtain payment and we use Simple Procedures in such cases. The main control over assessment collection is the payslip which is issued to each individual member as soon as possible after the amount of the assessment has been established by the AGM.\u00a0 This bears a number which uniquely identifies each member and this number is then printed on our bank statements.\u00a0 Please make use of this payslip when making payment either through the bank or by using the Mail Box and help us to avoid errors.<\/p>\n
ADMINISTRATION<\/p>\n
Prior to 1988 all the administration of the Association was carried out by the Committee voluntarily but the increasing membership was demanding more and more time.\u00a0 At the 1988 AGM it was therefore agreed to employ a part time administrative assistant to assist with the more routine matters, viz maintaining a record of assessment payments, checking house sales, corresponding with owners\/agents of tenanted properties and enquiring about the reasons of any non-payments. The 1994 AGM approved the Committee\u2019s proposal that the new Administrator\u2019s duties be extended. The Administrator now handles all the Association\u2019s business under instruction from the Committee.\u00a0 These duties now also include: obtaining quotations from and overseeing the work of contractors; dealing with any complaints or enquiries that arise; liaising with Council officials; preparing and distributing the Annual Report, Assessment Notices and Reminders; raising Court Action through Simple Procedures; maintaining the accounting records, preparing accounts and submitting these to an independent suitably qualified person. All routine enquiries regarding Association business should normally be directed in the first instance to the Administrator but it should be remembered that the Administrator acts only on the instruction of the Committee and therefore any criticism should be directed to the Committee not the Administrator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Buckstone Association exists to carry out the responsibility imposed on all owners of houses built on the estate since 1963 for the upkeep and maintenance of certain specific amenity areas within the estate.\u00a0 The extent of the estate was determined at the time by the area of land Miller Homes had then acquired for … Continue reading “About the Buckstone Association”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuckstoneassociation.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuckstoneassociation.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuckstoneassociation.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuckstoneassociation.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuckstoneassociation.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thebuckstoneassociation.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466,"href":"https:\/\/thebuckstoneassociation.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9\/revisions\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuckstoneassociation.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}