Industry News
HA apologises to residents for squalid conditions at London estate after TV expose
B
osses at the country’s largest social landlord have apologised to residents of an estate in south London found to be infested with
vermin and plagued by damp issues, with repairs left outstanding for years. The 500 properties on Eastfields Estate in
Mitcham are home to over a thousand people. It was featured in an ITV News bulletin, similar to one which exposed appalling living conditions on a Croydon Council estate in March. Eastfields is owned by Clarion Housing which
manages over 125,000 homes nationally. Vicky Bonner, director of housing at Clarion, said the service to residents living on the Eastfields Estate in Mitcham, south London, “had not been to the standard that the association would have liked” and that the housing association is “really sorry” to residents living there. The ITV News broadcast showed an estate
infested with rats and mice, with broadcast images showing widespread disrepair, including holes in the walls and ceilings, damp issues across the block and ongoing leaks. One long-term resident who has lived in the
block for 27 years, revealed that she had been living with a hole in her wall since she moved in. TV images showed her ceiling covered in black mould and a rotting bathroom, which led to the tenant being forced forced to wash with a bucket of water.
She said she could hear the sound of rats moving around in her walls at night, which has given her sleepless nights.
REPAIRS LEFT UNRECTIFIED Another resident reported living for eight months without any lights on the top floor of her house, which includes the family bathroom and her children’s bedroom. Both tenants said they had made repeated calls and complaints to Clarion to fix the issues in their flats but these had still not been rectified. Ms Bonner said Eastfields Estate was earmarked
for regeneration but progress had been slower than planned. She said: “The reality is Eastfields Estate is coming to the end of its life and the kind of issues we’ve got can only best be tackled by demolition and wholesale regeneration. “When you are faced with regeneration, there is
always a balance to be had in terms of how much short-term and long-term investment you make. It is clear to us that on this estate we haven’t got the balance right and that means some residents have had to put up with some repairs taking longer to complete. Clarion has since put in place an action plan to
address some of the issues, including writing to all residents to apologise and members of the local team knocking on every residents’ door to find out
The Regulator of Social Housing criticised the council saying that some of the homes they managed were “uninhabitable and unsafe” and that some tenants were at “risk of serious harm” as a result of the conditions
what their issues are. Clarion opened an estate office on the estate for residents to discuss housing issues and set up a dedicated email address for repairs to be reported. The earlier ITV investigation resulted in
Croydon Council becoming only the second social landlord found in breach of the Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard. The Regulator of Social Housing criticised the council saying that some of the homes they managed were “uninhabitable and unsafe” and that some tenants were at “risk of serious harm” as a result of the conditions.
Tenants are most likely to feel at risk from fire
Social housing tenants are the group who most fear a fire breaking out at their home, although the vast majority of residents still feel safe in their homes according to the most recent English Housing Survey results. For the first time in its history, the 2019/20
version of the survey collected data on whether people felt safe from fire in their homes. The data showed that most people feel safe in their home and do not fear that a fire will break out. In 2019/20, 89 per cent of households said they
felt safe from fire in their home and 6 per cent said that they neither agreed nor disagreed that they felt safe at home. One in 20 (5 per cent) of households said they felt unsafe in their home because they fear that a fire may break out. This varied by tenure, the
type of dwelling the household lived in and the respondent’s age and ethnicity.
TENURE Renters were more likely to (strongly or tend to) agree that they did not feel safe at home because they fear that a fire may break out. Social renters were more concerned, with 10 per cent agreeing with the statement, compared to 7 per cent of private renters. Owner-occupiers were the least likely to agree that they did not feel safe at home due to the fear of a fire breaking out, at just 3 per cent.
DWELLING TYPE Respondents in purpose built flats (low rise and high rise) were more likely than respondents in almost all other dwelling types to feel unsafe in their homes. In 2019/20, 21 per cent of those in high-rise flats
and 11 per cent of those in low-rise flats felt unsafe in their home. Rates for those who live in other dwelling types were much lower. For example, 5 per cent of those in small terraced houses and 4 per
20 | HMM August/September 2021 |
www.housingmmonline.co.uk
cent of those in bungalows (strongly or tended to) agree that they did not feel safe at home because they feared a fire breaking out.
AGE Younger people were more likely to feel unsafe in their home, with 15 per cent of those aged 16-24 reporting they felt unsafe, higher than any other age group. The other age groups ranged from 4 to 6 per cent.
Those aged 35-44 were more likely to feel unsafe in their home (6 per cent) than 45-54 year olds (4 per cent) and those aged 65 and over (also 4 per cent).
ETHNICITY Those from an ethnic minority background were more likely than those from a White background to report feeling unsafe at home due to fear that a fire might break out (8 per cent compared to 5 per cent). It is likely that all these findings are related. For
example, younger people and those from an ethnic minority background are more likely to be renters and renters are more likely to live in flats.
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