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Satellite TV work ruined my flat’s wonderful view
• I BELIEVE half of Islington’s housing stock has already been serviced under the satellite TV contract. We do not know the full figures, but no consultation has taken place with estates as to where the cables would go, or how sensitively the installation would be.
So far no statistical evidence has been gathered as to how many estates are happy or disappointed with this work.
I am personally outraged that my wonderful view has been ruined. If they do this borough-wide, potentially they could devalue housing stock by millions and leave many leaseholders with depreciated value and difficulty selling their flat should they wish to.
By the way this is not temporary. This is how they plan to leave the installation. We have cables at both our main windows, so we are doubly blighted. We are very concerned about the lack of consultation, about health and safety and how this will affect the rest of the borough.
Justine Gordon-Smith
Ilex House, N4
• LIKE many residents involved in housing campaigns, I received a copy of the email about the crude and ill-considered installation of the Homes for Islington (HfI) and BSkyB digital upgrade at Ilex House. Cables were left dangling outside residents’ windows, seriously spoiling previously spectacular views of London, one of the few positive things that living in high-rise accommodation has to offer.
Leaseholders are at least treated, to a point, like customers and have a choice to not subscribe to the aerial service but tenants (like myself) are forced to pay whether or not they need or indeed want the service. I neither need nor want it but was given no choice.
I am advised by HfI that this was a decision taken by the council. It’s another demonstration of just who is controlling HfI – the council – and what little regard it has for tenants. Sorry, I mean voters of course.
I received perfect Freeview before the BSkyB installation and am no better off for the additional costs I am forced to pay. I rent a home, not an extraterrestrial multimedia suite. Combining the Sky satellite dishes has to be far more expensive than the required digital aerial. If Sky offered a better price for this aspect of the project, it was surely in the full knowledge it would have the monopoly on satellite service provision. Again, they call tenants “customers” but offer us no choice.
We have been told that individual satellite dishes are detrimental to the buildings but I see several new dishes on even recently-refurbished council blocks and little evidence of enforcement over months and years. But this is hardly the first experience we have had of saying one thing and doing another (or just not doing it at all).
Thomas Cooper
Lower Hilldrop estate, N7
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