Holly Lodge estate |
Fears that model housing estate is being left to rot
MORE than half the bedsit blocks in a popular Highgate council estate are lying empty – prompting fears among tenants that their homes are being deliberately run down and may be sold off to a developer.
The Holly Lodge estate, a picturesque collection of social housing and privately owned homes snaking up the hill from Swain’s Lane to Highgate, has 215 bedsits – of which 132 are lying empty.
Now tenants plan to campaign to force the Town Hall to find the cash to do up the homes.
Home owners and tenants on the arts and crafts estate – a conservation area – have organised a series of meetings to discuss the future of their estate, and are lobbying the Town Hall to find the funds to turn dilapidated bedsits into one and two bed flats.
Other options, which the tenants have turned down, include selling the blocks, handing them over to a housing association, using a private finance initiative or transferring the estate to an Arms-Length Management Organisation – a deal already dismissed by tenants in a borough-wide vote three years ago.
Margaret Downey of the Holly Lodge Residents’ Association said: “These blocks have been allowed to fall into disrepair and are lying empty. The council tell us there are a number of options, but none of them are acceptable. We want to keep the estate council owned and we need to find a solution to get these homes filled.” Tenants were given tours this week round a block at the end of Oakeshott Avenue, lived in by squatters for many years, which has been refurbished.
Mrs Rothenberg said: “What the council have done there is tremendous and we want to see them find the money to get the others converted in the same way.”
Highgate ward Green Party councillor Adrian Oliver attended a campaign meeting on Saturday morning and said he hoped the Town Hall would consider other options.
He said: “The council are allowed to borrow cash at low rates.
“Building costs are going up 20 per cent a year and if you factor in security costs, enforcement against squatters, lost rents from leaving them empty and how the buildings deteriorate, it makes financial sense to borrow the money and get them fixed up.”
He added that if the council did not act soon, they faced breaking the terms of their own lease and could lose the estate altogether.
A Town Hall spokesman said: “We have just finished converting one of the bed-sit blocks into modernised self-contained flats. This cost £2 million and is part of a £7-million programme to repair and redecorate the whole estate.
“We are committed to ensure that all the residents in the remaining unconverted bed-sit blocks get decent self contained homes. However it will require over £15 million to convert the remaining properties into self-contained flats in order to bring them up to modern standards.
“While we are continuing to lobby central government for the additional money we need to do that work, the residents of the bed-sitted properties have asked us what other options exist. We will be discussing these with residents and it will be up to them to decide which options they prefer.”Fears that model housing estate is being left to rot
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