• GEORGINA Fraser’s letter (Now we are told the cladding can’t come down for a while! July 7) is both informative and fully illustrative of several points.

One is the need for residents across Westminster to be kept informed of matters outside of glossy soundbite publications from the city council and its satellite bodies.

Over the years we have seen most members of the majority party on the council (WCC) do not trouble their constituents with surgeries or meetings (except perhaps when it comes to election time). To further save voters the bother of actually meeting their elected councillors we now have something called the “cabinet” system in place.

In the realms of social housing across the city, the subsidiary of the council, CityWest Homes (CWH) performs much the same function. After all, we surely do not want the residents to be too troubled by matters that only councillors plus officials can understand and would only worry our pretty little heads.

In this respect, we begin to understand why the council took the decision to try to close down the only independent body with a cross-domain function across Westminster. They then used officers of CWH to pass on the message resulting from decisions made by councillors.

When and if other disasters on council estates happen and we read (usually in the right-wing press) that such matters should not become political, we should not forget how such decisions are made. Such decisions are by their very nature political because they are being made by politicians in the first place but others suffer the consequences as an aftermath.

The attempt to shut down the only city-wide forum with a cross-domain function that included all forms of housing has failed. The Westminster Residents Panel (WRP) still exists, even if the council is still trying to ignore us. It is well worth looking at what was intended to replace the WRP. This is what has become known as the Hub Forums geographically placed across the city.

For a start, any pretence at being interested in what happens to others across Westminster was dropped right at the start. From hearsay, these forums discuss only matters placed on their agendas by WCC/CWH and no one ever hears about what is being discussed in our name.

But then what is to be expected from the handpicked nature of these forums? Perhaps the Westminster Extra could turn the attention of its reporters to finding out whether what is discussed in these forums is major or trivial.

H BOURNE, SW1