Croydon flats - on the news

[Blinkinblimey]

I just saw a family in sopping wet flats where they were at risk of electrocution.

Fucking horrendous. You wouldn’t want to visit let alone live there.

How do housing teams allow this to happen? It really shouldn’t take the 10 o’ clock news to highlight appalling living conditions.

Feel so sad and angry.

I saw this too, very upsetting.

A link for any posters who haven’t seen it: www.itv.com/news/2021-03-22/the-worst-ive-ever-seen-the-appalling-and-unliveable-council-housing-conditions-some-have-endured-during-lockdown

I’m glad the council have responded and promised to act, but its awful that it took a report on TV to get them moving.

Absolutely jaw droppingly disgusting. Damp?? There was water dripping through ceilings! Councils are supposed to enforce decent homes standards, not make people live in shitholes like this and just ignore them.

Apparently the two families in the report have now been rehoused. As should everyone in that building which is fit only for demolition.

Shocking. How have they got through lockdown?

I could hardly believe the levels of damp in those flats. It's beyond appalling.

It says in the report that Croydon Council went bankrupt late last year - how does a council go bankrupt? Who (or what body) continues to provide the essential services?

You only have to look on the Facebook pages of councils and housing associations to see this is pretty standard stuff.
Ceilings falling down, sewage coming up through plumbing, no heating/hot water. Sometimes people have waited months for new boilers or for roofs to be fixed.
Usually it involves loads of repeated visits to look at the problem first or sending a carpenter to look at the electrics etc.
My HA (I'm a leaseholder) have got a Trustpilot score of 1.3 and some of the posts are truly shocking.

Forgot to say, there was a story the other day about a large double glazed window falling out of a fifth floor flat!!!!

These look horrendous, no way can you keep bedding dry in those conditions. They're a health hazard, how was nothing done earlier? Were the tenants paying ful rent? I hope they'll get a refund to replace damaged clothing etc

These people are still paying rent for their properties and most of them probably have not had anything done to them for years and years.
It’s shocking just how badly , most councils are run !
They take landlords to court for not looking after the properties they own , they should be taking themselves to court !!!

@MsVestibule

I could hardly believe the levels of damp in those flats. It's beyond appalling.

It says in the report that Croydon Council went bankrupt late last year - how does a council go bankrupt? Who (or what body) continues to provide the essential services?

I think the government bails them out.

I'm horrified by this too but sadly I am not surprised.

I think my council will go bankrupt so I am looking at Croydon with trepidation. Their council has wasted money in astonishing ways but so has mine. I've been expecting mine to go bankrupt for about three years.

There needs to be strict supervision of how councils spend. They should be covering the basics and not going for investment "projects".

This might interest some posters

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/croydon-councils-bankruptcy-warning-uk-government

Private rentals can be just as bad too.

‘6th richest country in the world’ is so commonly quoted. It’s a place to be ashamed of.

Croydon Council went bankrupt because their leader invested in lots of dubious large-scale building projects. They had a policy of running council funds in a commercial way. It was a high risk strategy. A large hotel that's been empty for a year and is being sold of at a massive loss now, an industrial estate that wasn't used, housing developments that didn't happen. It's interesting if you read up on it. They are selling off a lot of community buildings now to raise funds.
I don't know why there hasn't been a court case over misuse of funds/power or whatever the case would be for disposing of around £200 million with nothing to show for it.

@DianaT1969

Croydon Council went bankrupt because their leader invested in lots of dubious large-scale building projects. They had a policy of running council funds in a commercial way. It was a high risk strategy. A large hotel that's been empty for a year and is being sold of at a massive loss now, an industrial estate that wasn't used, housing developments that didn't happen. It's interesting if you read up on it. They are selling off a lot of community buildings now to raise funds. I don't know why there hasn't been a court case over misuse of funds/power or whatever the case would be for disposing of around £200 million with nothing to show for it.

Exactly

There should be rules in place instead of allowing the crazy schemes that go on. The investigation bills all come to us too.

Yes I started a thread on the Covid board.

@abstractzebra totally agree.

Disgusting about how protect the NHS save lives stay home has been used in the last year wear a mask etc which these tenants will have had to adhere to yet when it came to THEIR health no one gave a fuck worth a damn until some TV journo shamed them into it.

Found these interesting posts from an old thread. Posted by someone who said the same thing ive been saying for years. But her DH works/worked on HA homes.

LEMisafucker Thu 12-Dec-13 10:23:27

It is not ridiculous - my father worked all his life, my mother still lives in the 3 bed council house that they would have paid for ten times over in rent. It is not about moving pensioners out of their homes its about the money being paid in by people renting these properties being put back into the system and invested properly. Its about efficient repairs and moneies not being squandered going through middle man after middle man before the guy turns up on the doorstep to fix the boiler. My DP has worked on social housing contracts, subcontracting for a subcontractor whos is subcontracting for the main contractor who is farming all of this work out with god knows how many back hander with every little cog in the wheel syphoning off their money so where a job that DP would charge £150 for a days work (hes a carpenter) to a private homeowner, the same job is probably costing the council (the tax payer) £400 while everyone else creams their bit of money on top. He was astounded at the lack of organisation, waste of time, three people sent to do a job that could be done by one person etc. THAT is where the failings are, well, one of them, not allowing people who have paid into the system over the years to keep the homes they have paid for. Many pensioners CHOOSE to downsize, but even then suitable places are not available - you cannot put a pensioner for instance in a 1 bed flat on the fourth floor

same poster

There wouldn't be that problem of the maintainance costs if it wasn't such a lucrative business, contractors fall over themselves for SH contracts provide substantial "perks" its money for old rope. They pay underqualified workers a pittance of pay to get the work done quickly to a pretty poor standard and charge more than a premium job. So that argument for selling off the council properties falls a bit flat - there are people out there making substantial profits out of people falling on hard times

@DianaT1969

Croydon Council went bankrupt because their leader invested in lots of dubious large-scale building projects. They had a policy of running council funds in a commercial way. It was a high risk strategy. A large hotel that's been empty for a year and is being sold of at a massive loss now, an industrial estate that wasn't used, housing developments that didn't happen. It's interesting if you read up on it. They are selling off a lot of community buildings now to raise funds. I don't know why there hasn't been a court case over misuse of funds/power or whatever the case would be for disposing of around £200 million with nothing to show for it.

Tony Newman is a bloody criminal (along with some of the other people in the council) and should be in prison. What they did to Croydon is horrendous.

Absolutely appalling. Can’t believe people have to spend their lockdown in environments such as that.

@MsVestibule

I could hardly believe the levels of damp in those flats. It's beyond appalling.

It says in the report that Croydon Council went bankrupt late last year - how does a council go bankrupt? Who (or what body) continues to provide the essential services?

New York nearly went bankrupt at a couple of points. Detroit famously went bankrupt. It’s a mess when it happens. It’s a danger to several cities again now around the world because of COVID.

news.liverpool.ac.uk/2020/06/03/liverpool-close-to-bankruptcy-how-decades-of-stigma-have-pushed-the-city-into-financial-ruin/?

www.forbes.com/sites/mayrarodriguezvalladares/2019/01/29/americas-largest-cities-are-practically-broke/?sh=700648632ebb

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_bankruptcy

www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-cities-bankruptcy/609169/

@Sparklesocks

I saw this too, very upsetting.

A link for any posters who haven’t seen it: www.itv.com/news/2021-03-22/the-worst-ive-ever-seen-the-appalling-and-unliveable-council-housing-conditions-some-have-endured-during-lockdown

I’m glad the council have responded and promised to act, but its awful that it took a report on TV to get them moving.

As a long time Croydon resident, getting Croydon Council to say it will act is the easy part.

That flat wasn't damp.
It was a swamp.
That poor woman and her kids huddled together in one room.
An absolute disgrace.

Wow, I saw the headline earlier but didnt see it. I cannot believe that video! How can the Council not have known? TBH I cant see how they didnt know so I think they just didn't care about it - the man named Leroy said he was told by the Council that there wasnt a leak - did they visit the wrong building?

After a couple of previous posters mentioned bankruptcy I went down a bit of a rabbit hole. Seems the 'bail-out' is actually a Government loan - the Government can't just give them the money otherwise every Council would go bankrupt knowing it could have free money. So it looks like residents will have to pay off the new £120m(!) loan whilst getting less services.

Meanwhike the Council bought an overpriced empty hotel - couldnt they have put these flat residents in there whilst they fixed their flats?

Still can't believe people were living like that.

My sister worked for the council 20ish years ago (as a lowest rung contractor admin) and it was seemingly financially wasteful then so this doesn’t surprise me. Her department merged with another (200+ people), the boss got a massive pay rise (he was 2 years off retirement) then he retired suddenly due to ill health, allegedly. One of my sisters colleagues calculated jokingly that this would cost council tax payers an extra 1/2 million over 10 years for his pension, early retirement payments etc. etc. if he lived that long. (Although this figure seems far fetched to me, surely not).

MsVestibule Councils go bankrupt through financial mismanagement. Northamptonshire managed it a few years ago.

Northamptonshire is a Conservative county, in case anyone is thinking of blaming Labour.

I saw this news report last night too..those carpets were absolutely sodden and that mans bedroom wall looked like it had been in a fire it was so mouldy....i honestly think if i had to live like that id have killed myself....that poor woman with no fridge as the water had gone into the electrics....makes you grateful for the dry warm house you have.