Meet the residents being failed by heat networks
INSIGHT
10.08.21
BY LUCIE HEATH
This month, Lucie Heath has uncovered problems with heat networks run by social landlords across the country. Here are their stories
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Mira* – Pembroke Park Estate
Mira lives at Pembroke Park Estate in west London with her parents and two siblings in a house rented from A2Dominion.
Her mum tops up the heating with £40 each week, but sometimes in the winter this still is not enough. The family does not use their living room during the winter and they all have electric heaters in their rooms as a back-up.
“During the first lockdown, we noticed it was really cold… my parents were concerned because they wanted us to do well in school, do well from home, but obviously have that heating provided in our house,” Mira explains.
Suzy Killip, chair of Pembroke Park Residents’ Association, says the heat network was originally supposed to be powered by eco logs, which was a planning condition when the system was built during Ken Livingstone’s tenure as mayor of London. However, the system failed almost immediately and had to be replaced with gas.
Despite the move to gas, the estate still has outages.
“During the first lockdown, we noticed it was really cold… my parents were concerned because they wanted us to do well in school, do well from home, but obviously have that heating provided in our house”
“My parents were always saying to me, ‘Had we known that this was going to be something that we would face, I don’t think we would have moved into this property,’ but of course now that we’re stuck in there, my parents are like, ‘OK, well what can we do?’” says Mira.
David Lingeman, director of property services at A2Dominion, said: “We are working hard to increase the efficiency and reliability of our heat networks at Pembroke Park Estate. We know that there have been some challenges caused by increased demand as more people have been at home over the past year, and I would like to apologise to those affected.
“We have worked with our energy partners to reduce the costs for heat network customers at Pembroke Park and will continue to follow the situation closely to see where we can make further improvements.”
*Name has been changed
Geraint McCarthy and Niall Sheridan – Myatts Field North
Geraint McCarthy and Niall Sheridan are leaseholders living at Myatts Field North Estate in Brixton (pictured top), in homes that were developed roughly five years ago as part of an estate regeneration project carried out in partnership between Lambeth Council and developer Regenter.
Residents on the mixed-tenure estate have been reporting issues with its heat network, including outages and high bills, since the first homes were connected to the system in 2013.
The leaseholders say the outages became more frequent over the winter of 2020/21, when the entire development experienced several outages.
“This is a new development. It fails me that we have a heating system that is not fit for purpose over the coldest winter that we’ve had for quite a number of years”
“This is a new development. It fails me that we have a heating system that is not fit for purpose over the coldest winter that we’ve had for quite a number of years. The system just wasn’t able to cope with the requirements of our development, and when you’ve got elderly people on low incomes and a real cross section of society, in addition to those who are simply just working from home, it’s an appalling position to be in from a major energy company that they cannot fix your heating network,” says Mr McCarthy.
E.ON, which runs the heat network, has a compensation policy which sees residents refunded £30 if they experience 24 consecutive hours of outages or four separate 12-hour outages. However, Mr Sheridan says this is not enough to cover additional electricity costs, such as to heat up bath water using a kettle or to use electric heaters. He adds that residents do not receive compensation unless they kick up a fuss.
“The main things that we’ve been trying for as a residents’ association at Myatts Field North are compensation from E.ON, improved customer service from E.ON and then finally a review by Heat Trust and/or BEIS [the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy], our MP and Lambeth of the district heating contract that’s been put in place between Lambeth and E.ON, which gives E.ON this failing monopoly,” he says.
A spokesperson for E.ON said: “We take our responsibilities incredibly seriously and do we all we can to provide the reliable and cost-effective service that customers deserve. We have experienced an increase in the number of incidents on the network from last winter – primarily due to leaks in the underground pipe network, and these works have been repaired. We’ve kept customers informed of our progress and made support available to them throughout. This has included temporary alternative heating and, in some cases, overnight accommodation to minimise disruption and keep people comfortable.
“We apologised to residents for those difficulties and paid an additional compensation to every customer at Myatts Field North for their inconvenience. We continue to host regular online meetings with customers to share the improvements we’re making on reliability of the network and improved service.”
A spokesperson for Lambeth said: “We’re aware of these issues and have been trying to resolve them in collaboration with residents and E.ON. We’re hopeful that, through continuing communication between all parties, there’s a clear proposal worked out to significantly improve customer experience.”
When Inside Housing approached Regenter, it directed us to the response from Lambeth Council.
Stephen Knight, director at Heat Trust, said: “E.ON’s Myatts Field North heat network was registered with us in 2015 and so we monitor data in relation to this network, such as complaint numbers, unplanned interruption to supply and other data. Indeed, the site has recently been undergoing an audit by our auditors. Once this is finalised, we will publish a summary of our findings to residents at the site and monitor the implementation of any remedial action required.
“While Heat Trust does not deal with individual consumer complaints, we do provide access to the Energy Ombudsman for residents that cannot resolve the matter with their supplier. The ombudsman has the power to award compensation payments to consumers and to order other actions. We are aware that the Energy Ombudsman has dealt with a number of complaints from residents at Myatts Field North over the past few years.”
Philippe Wilson – New Festival Quarter
Philippe Wilson lives at New Festival Quarter, a development in east London that was built by Bellway in 2015.
He says the heating and hot water have been unreliable since he moved in and describes purchasing his property as “the worst financial decision I’ve ever made”.
Mr Wilson estimates he will be billed more than £1,000 this year for the district heating system. His tariff was recently increased, meaning he expects his usage cost to be £400.
In addition, Mr Wilson has previously paid an annual charge of £440 on maintenance, with this cost varying depending on repairs, alongside £99 on billing, £120 on servicing of his individual heating unit, and £100 on the servicing of his own unvented cylinders.
“I worked non-stop, often two jobs, for 10 years to save up for [this flat] – I wish I hadn’t”
“I never imagined it would have been so much. You have to pay for all the maintenance in the shared system and then you have to pay for the maintenance in your flat,” he says.
Like many leaseholders experiencing issues with their heat network, Mr Wilson is also caught up in the cladding scandal. While Bellway paid for the dangerous cladding on their building to be removed, leaseholders have still been hit with other costs, most notably soaring insurance premiums.
“I worked non-stop, often two jobs, for 10 years to save up for [this flat] – I wish I hadn’t. I’ve spent endless hours contesting unreasonable charges and poor management without getting anywhere. Service charge bills rose to £3,000 in the second year. At point of sale, Bellway sold me the service charge as £1,690, which is manageable. If I knew it was going to be about £3,000 a year, I wouldn’t have continued with the purchase.”
Bellway says it is not responsible for the ongoing maintenance of the heating system and associated costs. And Encore, which took over the management of the estate last year, declined to comment.
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Adam Laws – Barking Riverside
Adam Laws moved into his shared ownership property at Barking Riverside, the 10,000-home development currently being developed in partnership between L&Q and Bellway, in 2019.
In January this year, his hot water failed and did not return for seven weeks. He has still not received compensation from his energy provider, L&Q Energy. In the meantime, he is still experiencing regular outages.
In a recent letter to Mr Laws’ MP, L&Q blamed the outage on the “constraints during lockdown” and “the availability of contractors attending our sites” leading to “strainers” not being cleaned within the “usual timeframe”.
In addition to his usage charge, Mr Laws is charged a daily standing charge of £1.10 to cover maintenance of the system, which he was still forced to pay during the seven weeks that he was without hot water.
“For seven weeks we had a total lack of hot water and heating because they didn’t change the filters,” he says. “Our point of view is we’re paying £1.10 as part of the service charges and you’ve not carried out a basic task.”
Despite the problems with the system, L&Q raised the daily standing charge to £1.13 in April this year.
“It doesn’t matter how bad the service is or how good the service is, and subsequently they can change the prices pretty much on a whim”
Mr Laws currently has no power to challenge these increases as he had to sign a heat supply agreement with L&Q Energy as a condition of moving into the property.
“I appreciate it’s quite a new development so there’s bound to be teething issues… but actually getting any communication from them is just impossible. The customer service is terrible and you can’t change the contract – we’re always going to be with L&Q Energy. It doesn’t matter how bad the service is or how good the service is, and subsequently they can change the prices pretty much on a whim. So I think that’s probably one of the fundamental issues.”
A spokesperson for L&Q said: “L&Q Energy operates on a not-for-profit basis, and we’re fully transparent with prospective buyers and renters about the services we provide. Residents pay a single tariff standing charge which covers our operating costs and nothing else. This is competitively benchmarked against the big six energy providers, and currently capped at £1.13 per day.
“We planned to increase the tariff in 2020, to reflect rising maintenance costs in the market, and the Retail Price Index. But we delayed this to April 2021 as part of our wider response to the coronavirus pandemic. These changes were communicated to residents.”
Lucie Gutfreund – South Kilburn
Lucie Gutfreund moved into a new build flat in South Kilburn in 2013. One of the main requirements for her new flat was that it had a bath, as Ms Gutfreund suffers from fibromyalgia and the hot water alleviates the pain.
For the first seven winters that she lived in her flat, Ms Gutfreund was plagued with hot water issues. In 2019-20, she was left without hot water for six months and without heating for two months, during which she was sick with COVID-19.
“It’s just an absolute misery, this kind of living,” she says. “The amount of money I was having to spend on taking taxis to the gym on the way to work so I could wash my hair – that was becoming insane.”
Some of the issues experienced by Ms Gutfreund have been communal, while others have been specific to her flat.
The problems in her flat were eventually solved after it was discovered that a filter had not been installed where it was supposed to be.
“Why didn’t they find that out from year one? Seven years of bloody misery because nobody has the plan, nobody cares, there’s no oversight,” she says.
“Seven years of bloody misery because nobody has the plan, nobody cares, there’s no oversight”
However, problems with the communal system returned in January this year and the development has since been connected to a temporary energy unit placed in the residents’ communal garden.
Meanwhile, Ms Gutfreund is charged roughly £1,700 per year to heat her one-bedroom flat.
An L&Q spokesperson says the system will be upgraded by the end of the summer and that the costs of these works will not be passed on via service charges.
They add: “We’re sorry that some residents have experienced outages with their heating and hot water supply. Whenever we receive reports about these issues, we seek to resolve them as quickly and effectively as we can, but we understand how disruptive and frustrating this can be.
“None of this should take away from the important work L&Q Energy does tackling fuel poverty and improving energy efficiency. Our HomeSave programme, which has just concluded, identified 4,002 households living in fuel poverty and supported them with water and energy-saving devices. Between June 2018 and March 2021, we helped these residents save £2,717,358 (or £679 per home).”