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Camden New Journal - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 20 September 2007

No inquiry into £120k sabotage

Gas mains attack ‘swept under carpet’

SABOTAGE of an entire housing estate’s gas supply four days before Christmas was never fully investigated by council or police despite a £120,000 bill for tax-payers, the New Journal has learned.
The gas outage on the Maiden Lane estate in Camden Town last December prompted a massive council relief mission, which saw 270 electric cookers ferried in to ensure residents could cook Christmas lunch while contractors worked to re-establish supply.
But despite a council engineer concluding that the incident was caused by someone deliberately turning the supply off at the mains, and the six-figure bill that followed, no investigation by engineers – or auditors – resulted in any official report.
Police did not investigate what residents insist should be regarded as criminal damage because no crime was officially reported.
Maiden Lane resident and member of its semi-autonomous Estate Management Board Dr Peter Preston said this week that he had repeatedly reported the incident to the authorities – a claim supported by documents seen by the New Journal.
He said: “Neither the police nor the council have investigated this properly – it has just been swept under the carpet. It sends a signal that anything goes.”
Council housing chief Councillor Chris Naylor acknowledged last week that “the communal gas supply on the Maiden Lane estate was deliberately turned off.”
He added: “It is very upsetting that someone would do this and I was very pleased that residents, staff and councillors all worked hard to make the best of it.
“Given the time of year, we decided the most important task was to get the gas supply up and running for residents as soon as possible rather than preserve the plant room as a crime scene – which would have significantly delayed reconnecting the gas. We have taken additional measures to secure the plant room to ensure this does not happen again.”
Cllr Naylor said “We carried out an immediate investigation but were unable to trace the culprit.”
But a council press official clarified that, although the £120,000 bill was met by the council’s major repairs fund, the probe into the incident was left to the residents of Maiden Lane and the estate management board.
Although the incident was reported at least twice to Camden police, a spokeswoman said last week that “the incident was not recorded as a crime as there was no evidence of a crime having taken place.”

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