"Hodkinson carried out a qualitative survey of 14 homes refurbished by Rydon that had been the subject of a huge number of complaints. Showers were fitted next to electric fans. A toilet was installed so close to a wall that you could only sit on it sideways. Some households went for days without electricity and weeks without cooking facilities. Cupboards were fitted with wrongly size doors. Tenants who complained reported that they were treated dismissively. One remembered the site supervisor saying to him, “It ain’t Chelsea, mate.” Regenter’s out-of-hours emergency line linked to the wrong database, so callout engineers weren’t available. The striking thing was how long problems could drag out: one family’s flat was flooded in January 2014, and repairs weren’t even scheduled till September. Two years later, their flat still hadn’t been fully repaired and redecorated. Even at the most straightforward level, the work wasn’t done to a decent standard.
When approached for comment, Rydon said that since the complaints were made, three years ago, attempts have been made to remedy the problems. They said the comments were not reflective of most of the residents, and that there was a good level of satisfaction among the residents now.
For tenants with more complicated requirements, the situation was worse. The Cifuentes family, one of whom used a wheelchair, was left without ramps, hoists or any means of escape in a fire, and without a lock on the front door. Repairs were so slow and haphazard that, at one point, the family had to move out for over a month, and the disabled member could only have his needs met by going into a respite unit – whereupon they were threatened with losing their carer’s allowance, their disability allowance and their car.
"There were countless other concerns, which Stuart Hodkinson reported to the Health and Safety Executive, as well as to senior officers and elected members of Lambeth and other London councils, the fire service, the gas, water and electricity boards – anyone he could think of. “The response was generally pathetic,” he says.
The Health and Safety Executive took six weeks to reply, then apologised for the “ridiculous amount of time it had taken to investigate”, but did offer two important revelations – that Regenter as the principal contractor did not have an efficient system for managing and monitoring the 14 sub-contractors on site when they visited; and that cuts to health-and-safety funding meant that their scope for investigating and enforcing standards was reduced. Hodkinson was told to contact the Trading Standards authority, but residents across different council housing regeneration schemes told him there was no point as “local authorities do not investigate themselves”