Islington Tribune - News: Estate ‘defects’ dossier is handed to watchdog

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Islington Tribune - by PETER GRUNER
Published: 7 December 2007

Thomas Cooper

Estate ‘defects’ dossier is handed to watchdog

Homes agency accused of failing to oversee £6.2m repairs

NEW claims emerged this week in the row over alleged “poor workmanship” involved in the £6.2 million refurbishment of the Grade II-listed Spa Green estate opposite Sadler’s Wells.
A report to the Audit Commission accuses Homes for Islington (HfI), the agency responsible for the borough’s housing, of insufficient management of the two-year contract at the Finsbury estate where there have been more than 400 complaints about work.
Private contractor Apollo has been working on the estate since September 2005. The contract has reached the stage where the company has to put right any problems.
But a damning five-page report by Spa Green’s elected estate manager, Thomas Cooper, was handed over last week to officials of the Audit Commission, an independent body charged with ensuring public money is spent efficiently.
He complains that hundreds of utility boxes were “wrongly” sealed down by mastic glue and painted over when lids should have been screwed on.
His claims were featured recently in the Tribune when he said leaseholders would be paying the “equivalent of John Lewis prices for Poundstretcher rejects”.
The boxes contain BT phone cables and pipes carrying hot and cold water, heating and waste water. Several residents have no landline phones because BT engineers cannot get access to the panels.
Mr Thomas said: “Nothing has happened since the Tribune first pointed out the problem of the boxes. HfI have said they are going to look at it.”
English Heritage supervised the refurbishment, which involved the use of special materials. The estate was designed in the 1940s by Berthold Lubetkin, the modernist architect who created London Zoo’s penguin pool.
Complaints about work at 30 homes cover a range of alleged defects, including excessive condensation and problems with windows. One window panel is said to have fallen out into the hands of an Islington clerk of works.
HfI has commissioned an independent expert who is compiling a report into the window problem.
Mr Thomas said that, despite the estate’s listed status, the quality of the fittings in the kitchens and bathrooms is “abysmally low”.
He added: “The toilet seats are plastic and flimsy. The pins that form the hinge to the seat to the toilet keep slipping out. One elderly tenant fell off the toilet.
“I’m not saying we need mahogany toilet seats but I’m saying at least use decent materials. Many residents are replacing the cheap toilet seats with better-quality ones from a store.”
Mr Thomas added: “I’d like the Audit Commission to recognise how badly specified, supervised and checked the work was. I would like them to see what bad value they got for £6.2 million and implement appropriate measures to ensure this does not happen again.”
HfI is to meet tenants on the estate next week to discuss the boxes problem.

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