Inside the London estate where residents deal with mould, floods, and stabbings – while their landlord makes £100m surplus

Get the free Morning Headlines electronic mail for information from our reporters throughout the world

Sign as much as our free Morning Headlines electronic mail

When Erica’s daughter desires to exit to fulfill her associates at the cinema, she will’t simply stroll out of their entrance door like a traditional 14-yr-previous would.

Erica Figueiredo, 42, has to escort her down the 5 flooring of their council estate tower, able to fend off any threats they could encounter in the stairwell. Her fears are justified, she explains, as a result of final month eight individuals obtained into the constructing in balaclavas carrying knives in quest of somebody on their flooring.

This is life on one among London’s most dilapidated and harmful estates. A 276-flat advanced, Milford Towers in Catford, was earmarked for demolition in 2012. But over a decade later, the towers are nonetheless standing with indicators of degradation in every single place.

Six out of eight of the lifts should not working, graffiti is plastered throughout the hallway partitions, the outdoors doorways can’t be locked and one flat has been left fully burnt out by a hearth. Residents say there have been no less than three stabbings on the estate in the previous yr, with gangs reported to assault rivals inside the advanced as a result of it’s much less uncovered than on the streets outdoors.

Housing affiliation Notting Hill Genesis are answerable for the maintenance of the overwhelming majority of the flats, while Lewisham council are chargeable for the communal areas, however residents complain that their issues get ignored. For every of the previous three years, Notting Hill Genesis Group, the not-for-revenue social housing supplier, has had a surplus earlier than tax of over £100m, with the highest-paid worker on a wage of £296,000.

In the final monetary yr, the housing affiliation, which manages greater than 60,000 properties in London, made an working surplus of £97.2m from their social housing lettings. While the housing affiliation plugs cash into new-construct inexpensive and market hire houses in Hackney Wick and Newham, residents of Milford Tower say they’re being left behind.

Lewisham Council has contracted out the administration of some 200 of the flats to Notting Hill Genesis, however they preserve accountability for the remainder of the flats and for the communal areas.

Ms Figueiredo was compelled to maneuver out of her Notting Hill Genesis flat final summer season when a leak on the eighth-flooring unfold and began {an electrical} hearth. She explains: “I was living on the sixth floor and there was a leak on the eighth floor that was reported several times but was not fixed. As a result of the leak, the water got into the electrical boards, where the fuses for several apartments were. That led to a fire and as a result of that, they had to turn off the water. So there was no electricity and no water.”

Maintenance employees who got here to repair the drawback discovered that it was not doable to simply shut off the water for just a few flats. Instead, water needed to be lower off to round 70 flats, she says. Without water or electrical energy, Ms Figueiredo discovered herself being decanted right into a lodge in Morden.

She determined that it could be finest for her daughter to remain with a pal quickly and it was two weeks earlier than they have been moved again into a distinct flat on the estate. Her new flat has issues with mould, however that’s a standard challenge, she defined.

“I had to clean the mould in the bedroom myself over Christmas because I couldn’t let it stay like that and I can’t wait for them to do something about it.”

When requested if mould had affected her or her little one’s respiration, she says it was a continuing challenge.

“My child had to be on a course of antibiotics in December and January for respiratory issues. I constantly have some sort of allergy symptoms. It’s always hard to say 100 per cent that it is related with this but it definitely contributes to worsening our health symptoms.”

In one other Notting Hill Genesis flat on the fifth flooring, a younger household confirmed The Independent how the sink in their toilet had a protracted crack working by way of it that they mentioned had not been mounted for some 5 years. Black mould was beginning to develop in the nook of the bathe and, after they flushed the bathroom, water got here out the backside.

“It smells really bad,” Jose Antonio says. “We have been in this flat for six years and the sink has been broken for five. We complained to the housing manager about the problems but they have not been fixed. The water that comes out from under the toilet smells bad.”

Safety can also be a priority, particularly for his six-yr-previous son. He says: “I don’t let the children out alone because it is dangerous, especially at night time. Sometimes there are knives and stabbings here and people come in here because the doors can be yanked open. The council has said that they will fix the doors and the lifts, so we hope they will do that. The lift that is nearest to this flat has been broken for three years.”

Tenants at Milford Towers pay under-market hire ranges, for what are supposed to be brief-time period lets. However, some residents have been residing on the estate for greater than a decade.

Simmone Ahiaku, from the London Renters Union, defined that Lewisham Council and Notting Hill Genesis generally disagree over who ought to pay for renovations in the estate.

“The council says security is for Notting Hill Genesis, Notting Hill Genesis says it’s Lewisham Council – and things are left for years in disrepair because both of them are fighting over who maintains the communal areas especially.”

The damaged lifts are an enormous drawback. Ingrid, a single mum of a 4-yr-previous son with albinism, explains how the disrepair had impacted her. “Recently there was an emergency, I was sick and I had to call an ambulance and it was not easy for the ambulance workers to come and help. A few days ago I saw more paramedics, it was really awful to see them struggling to bring up all their stuff up the stairs.”

Her son can also be imaginative and prescient impaired and when the stairs should not clear he struggles to navigate round the discarded cans of drinks, left-over meals, and different garbage. This, added to the lack of safety, means she is scared to take her son outdoors the flat, she explains. “Anything can happen. I keep him inside because I’m scared and I like to keep him by my side.”

Kellie McKone, 45, says paramedics struggled to assist her husband when he had a medical emergency final yr. Health employees couldn’t contact her initially as a result of their intercom wasn’t working, which added delays, she mentioned. Ambulance employees then needed to discover a method of serving to her husband to the different aspect of the tower block so they might use one among the working lifts. “It took much longer and he was having breathing difficulties,” she says.

Her husband later handed away after selecting up an an infection in hospital. Ms McKone says there had not too long ago been one other loss of life of a resident, who had encountered comparable issues.

Climbing up the stairs to her flat is “frightening”, she says, including: “It affects my mentality because we have the druggies and the drunks on the staircases. You don’t know what you’re going to find on the stairs. We fought to get mirrors on the stairs so we could see round the corners, but the addicts and drunks keep breaking them.”

She needed to transfer into her present flat on the estate after her first flat obtained flooded resulting from a leak, she says.

Viviana, who lives on the fifth flooring, defined that the nearest working carry to her flat goes solely to the seventh or third flooring so she has to go down or up the stairs to the fifth while carrying buying and a buggy.

She has a one-yr-previous son and defined that two months in the past he developed bronchitis, she believes due to the mould in their flat. She says: “Crackheads gather near the entrance to my flat because there’s no other flats nearby and so it’s a bit out of the way. I’ve also got mould and I have to clean it all the time because of my son. We never know what we are going to find on the stairs, sometimes we find the needles that they do drugs with.”

Milford Towers has had a historical past of violent crime taking place inside the estate. In July final yr, a person in his 40s was discovered with stab accidents on the stairwell. Days later police have been known as once more when a person in his 20s was discovered with a stab wound on the estate.

In November 2019, two males chased a person by way of the block of flats, cornered him in a rest room, and attacked him with a machete.

In 2005, a 15-yr-previous woman was found lifeless and dismembered in sacks close to the garbage chute. She had been kidnapped and delivered to a flat on the eighth flooring, with a convicted intercourse attacker going to jail for all times for her homicide.

In 2007, a 24-yr-previous man was chased up two flights of stairs earlier than being shot in the chest with a sawn-off shotgun by his assailants.

A spokesperson for Lewisham Council mentioned that they “recognise that the management of the estate has not been up to the standards we expect”. They mentioned that Milford Towers residents have been “understandably frustrated with some of the current and historic issues on the estate”.

They added: “We are fully committed to working with residents to address these issues and are carrying out extensive improvements works across the estate, investing over £14m to support this work.”

Security patrols have not too long ago been put in place to discourage anti-social behaviour, they mentioned.

Notting Hill Genesis mentioned that that they had an on-web site repairs service for residents so issues with the flats might be dealt with shortly. Since November 2022, they’ve accomplished 441 jobs, together with 52 for damp and mould.

A spokesperson mentioned: “We are only responsible for repairs within individual flats and not for lifts, communal areas or external doors and to ensure we carry out our responsibility as best we can.” They urged any involved households to contact their repairs workforce, including: “We work closely with Lewisham Council, as well as London Renters Union, to push for further improvements throughout the building. We know the council is committed to making Milford Towers safer and more comfortable for everyone living there and will support them in that goal.”

Some residents imagine that the council’s final intention is to demolish the complete constructing and that’s why they’re unwilling to spend extra money on it. Works have been finished not too long ago to repaint the towers and repair the roof, to the tune of over £8m, however the damaged lifts and the outdoors doorways have been left.

Lewisham Council has mentioned that the defective lifts might be changed, as will the safety doorways, and the communal areas might be redecorated. They additionally promised to hearken to the residents’ issues and work with Notting Hill Genesis to make sure they’re finishing up repairs.

However, the residents are cynical about whether or not this may occur. Ms Figueiredo says: “They like to say they are spending loads of money, but the basic things they haven’t done – like changing the doors or having working lifts. We keep raising these situations but no real impactful action is ever taken.”