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Scrutiny commitee members Barry Edwards, left, and Paul Convery inspecting estate standards |
Town Hall team visits estates to inspect maintenance work
Cross-party councillors told of poor quality workmanship by building firms
A MAJOR investigation into workmanship standards on Islington’s estates saw a Town Hall working party tour the borough on Friday.
Councillors and officers visited seven estates and mansion blocks as part of a scrutiny committee probe into Decent Homes Standard works, the government’s benchmark for council housing.
They heard a catalogue of complaints from vocal leaseholders and tenants aggrieved at, they claim, poor quality of workmanship by subcontracted building firms.
The remit of the performance review committee is to analyse “effectiveness and customer satisfaction of the Decent Homes capital programme”.
Islington’s council housing is managed by Homes for Islington (HfI), a private company set up in 2003 to secure a £157 million Treasury loan.
Estates visited on
Friday included King Square, Spa Green, Hillrise, Finsbury, and Holly Park.
The cross-party committee is chaired by Labour’s Paul Convery.
He said: “There’s nothing like seeing things for yourself and there was quite a lot of poor workmanship in a lot of places.
“We saw many poorly laid surfaces and badly fitting windows. There was also poorly prepped paintwork that’s peeling off already.
“A number of contractors are causing quite a bit of havoc and doing work badly. HfI is not specifying the work properly so it’s understandable leaseholders are annoyed.”
Councillor George Allan, a senior Lib Dem who sits on the committee, warned its remit does not include general gripes about building noise.
He said: “We met with a number of unhappy leaseholders but this was the intention of the visit – we wanted to see things on the ground.
“(Hearing) that builders are messy and should work more quietly is not necessarily a surprise.
“We will not be making any recommendations on that.
“It is very interesting that the level of satisfaction among tenants is higher.”
Cllr Allan added: “The visits were a useful reminder of the issues. I think it is important that we remain open-minded until we have all the parts of the story.”
Brian Potter, chairman of the Islington Leaseholders’ Forum, has been pushing for months for the estate visits.
He said: “They had council officers everywhere coming out and telling us how wonderful things are. But on the other hand, there were lots of leaseholders who came down to talk to the committee and tell them the truth.
“Already, its purpose has been fulfilled by showing the commission what’s really going on.”
Mr Potter hopes the reports on the workmanship will shame the council and HfI into allowing leaseholders and tenant bodies to examine future housing contracts, which are presently protected by commercial confidentiality clauses.
The committee’s final report will be presented to the council’s executive, its decision-making body, later this year. |
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