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.

Local pages suggest the whole block is like this (something about dead pigeons blocking roof drainage)! The two families named wete put in a hostel/hotel (possibly temporarily to be moved back into the block) but people in that block in the same conditions say they are still living there. Meanwhile Croydon Council invested millions in Brick by Brick private developments that are sitting there empty and unsold. It is wicked.

@Blinkinblimey

Croydon is vastly mixed, I’m sure like a lot of London. However, there are very affluent parts of the Borough, especially towards the south, and house prices have gone up hugely in the last ten years. So not one of those places where you’d think the council couldn’t raise any money.

I pay quite a lot in council tax so I’m not quite sure what the problem is. If they need to raise more money so be it, but obviously there should be some sort of enquiry as to whether it’s being spent wisely!

Places like Sanderstead

South Croydon and Shirley for example are very nice and correspondingly expensive

Not far from where these flats are there are some really nice areas as well but South Norwood as a whole isn't great (lived there for a while)

I actually see the guy from the report frequently and it's really bugging me where I recognise him from

The people featured have been moved but for anyone that wants to help see this link
www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/reginaroad

With the greatest of respect, and I can fully understand why people start these things, the crowd funding thing is not the answer.
The whole block needs sorting out and bringing up to scratch so that all the people living there are living in dry, warm, clean acceptable accommodation.
A few quid to buy a new fridge just won't do if nothing is being done about the underlying problems that caused the property to deteriorate to this extent.

@Wingedharpy

With the greatest of respect, and I can fully understand why people start these things, the crowd funding thing is not the answer. The whole block needs sorting out and bringing up to scratch so that all the people living there are living in dry, warm, clean acceptable accommodation. A few quid to buy a new fridge just won't do if nothing is being done about the underlying problems that caused the property to deteriorate to this extent.

Agree totally -- private individuals can help in individual situations but this extends FAR beyond just these two tenants.

And there's a part of me that says this lets the council off of the hook to an extent, which we shouldn't be doing.

Also saw this report yesterday and sadly doesn't surprise me at all. I live in affluent South of South Croydon. Central and South Croydon have been bought to their knees in recent years by greedy developers in cahoots with Croydon Council. Which of course has now bankrupted itself through ridiculous property deals. The scale of corruption is hard to actually believe in modern-day Britain for people who don't live here or nearby - and the terrible housing conditions of the council-owned social housing that we saw on the report is the direct consequence or this corrupt and now bankrupt council.

Look at these 2 charmers for example - wife works for a property developer that has pillaged it's way through South Croydon, enabled by the husband who was a senior planner in Croydon's planning dept - but no conflict of interest of course!

insidecroydon.com/2020/08/27/questions-tower-over-councils-husband-and-wife-planning-act/
insidecroydon.com/2020/04/08/family-fortunes-council-suspected-of-planning-cover-up/

Just the tip of the iceberg. I really hope there are criminal convictions coming down the line for Croydon council and their mate's property companies.

The real shame of course is that Croydon has a lot going for it - vibrant and diverse people, great foodie culture developing, some good schools, fantastic transport links, lots of green spaces, both in Croydon and on its doorstep. But all that potential is never realised due to a small number of greedy families that have harvested it for their own personal gain - and all live in the nice big, dry houses in the nice parts of Surrey that abut Croydon or course.

How do people expect "the council" to run properly and prevent awful situations like this happening when they are so deeply underfunded in underhand ways by a Conservative central government. Add to that Croydon has a high level of deprivation & more than its fair share of council tenants to house. Just look at the housing waiting lists.

Croydon made some shocking investment decisions no doubt, but question why? Local authorities being forced to come up with new funding streams as austerity by any other name continues.

Stuff like this will continue to happen, local government is underfunded, under staffed & tied into explotative contracts with private companies who see them as a cash cow & provide poor service. These people won't have called the council directly they will have called their repairs contractor who will have mismanaged the situation knowing full well there aren't enough staff at the council to manage the contract properly & provide proper oversight.

I saw this on the news yesterday & was genuinely shocked that people are knowingly left to live like this in 2021.

It wasn’t damp. It was raining indoors! How can Councils charge rent for these hovels?

I would normally agree with you in terms of central under funding and just general ineptitude. But you, I and everyone that lives in the area or works/worked for Croydon council knows this was corruption, on a massive scale, whatever the original root causes that allowed it to happen were.

I starts with the selling off of council houses, of course, without replacing them (selling would be fine if replaced”. Then it opens the door for unscrupulous private landlords z

Central govt underfunding of course plays a part. But also absolute villains in the council itself acting as above. We’ve got massive corruption at all levels of government it seems!

Well done Kamma for passing the buck so well. This has nothing to do with funding - although if you want to go down that route you'd also know that as direct grants reduced local councils retained a larger percentage of business rates, although sadly not that big an input given that pre-Covid the Labour Council delayed Westfield, which won't happen now, and meanwhile the town centre has died which means less business rates - empty shops don't pay business rates as far as I know.

You can still make investments that aren't doomed to fail. The Labour Finance councillor said that they knew the operator was in trouble when they paid more than the asking price for the building. What sort of decision was that?

And after all that blame-throwing, we have to ultimately accept that decisions were made to not respond to the requests for help. You don't know they called a contractor. Both say they contacted the Council. Nothing in that report suggests that that is not true.

You may be right that the Housing team is understaffed given the recent redundancies but there is no way in 2 years that none of the complaints from this block have been seen by housing officers. At some point decisions have been made within the Council to not resolve this situation.

The whole council tax and funding system is probably very flawed - I’m not an expert though.

At some point decisions have been made within the Council to not resolve this situation.

This. And shame on them. Not my idea of socialism.

Some info about the crooks at Croydon Council who have been suspended. The bankruptcy was revealed following an independent audit.
www.google.com/amp/s/insidecroydon.com/2021/02/11/newman-and-hall-are-administratively-suspended-by-labour/amp/

@Walkingtheplank I didn't say the council aren't at fault, but they are working within a system that is hugely flawed. It absolutely does have something to do with funding. If you have been forced to rely on external contractors to carry out some of your services & don't have the staff to scrutise their performance what do you think will happen?

If you look at the Croydon website it's clear their day to day repairs are handled by a contractor & as a resident it says you go via them.

An investigation will be needed to see exactly how this didn't reach an escalation stage earlier but its not as black & white as council bad/don't give a shit.

Disclaimer...I do not work or live in Croydon but am very familiar with social housing sector.

Looks like the usual cover up is in progress - the poor tenants now getting shoved out of sight

insidecroydon.com/2021/03/23/tenants-in-rushed-evacuation-from-south-norwood-block/

insidecroydon.com/2021/03/23/appalled-jenrick-seeks-urgent-answers-over-croydon-flats/#more-99468

Not sure you realise how "special" Croydon Council is

This is one of the most shocking things I've ever seen - those poor tenants. I wish a legal person would take up their case and sue the arses off the Council (although I'm sure there'd be lots of buck passing).

There is zero accountability for HA/LA and they know it, so they do fuck all.

I’d love to see more information on what Croydon council are doing regarding this emergency decant.

They should be doing a needs assessment and liaising with homelessness provision to house these families. If families don’t voluntarily comply then they would need to go to court for emergency access to get it.

Families would be entitled for food allowance if housed within kitchen facilities, plus potentially statutory home loss and disturbance payments.

I hope shelter are helping these families to make sure Croydon council are acting legally and fairly. I’d hate to be the housing officer of that block - however it sounds like this issue is way up the chain of command than the HO they will scapegoat.

A number of PP have mentioned licensing for landlords in their local areas - one of the truly ridiculous things about all of this is that private landlords ALL require a licence to let their properties in Croydon. The council runs a vast money-making scheme under the premise of having 'fit for housing' lets, again to the tune of around £600 just to apply. And yet put their own tenants in conditions like this, it beggars belief. Those poor people.

Perfect example of why landlord licensing is a waste of time and just an income stream for the council. I bet there's no enforcement - and clearly there is no money going towards their own property maintenance.

To describe that place as damp when it was ( as someone else said) raining though the ceiling...beyond belief.

I'd love to hear that Shelter ( the housing charity that provides no housing) got all the tenants into decent accommodation. I'll wait..

Exactly! Most of us in this borough are well aware how how corrupt Croydon Council are. What council lends £200 million of taxpayers money to its pet developer Brick by Brick (hated by most croydon residents) that has built 3 council homes in 5 years (plus many more private homes that the company cannot sell because it negligently failed to register itself)? What council buys a large and unprofitable hotel for £30 million and lets it rot? What council spends £50 million (£20 million over budget) on renovating a huge arts venue it owns and allows its failed pet developer Brick by Brick to run this large scale project with no relevant experience? The failed Brick by Brick is being wound down and with it millions of pounds of taxpayer money is gone, like that. This is so much more than a ‘not enough funding’ issue!