Popham estate residents: ‘Unsightly wires are making our flats look like a B&Q warehouse’
Workmen are accused of wrecking estate by running cables across walkways
Published: 18th February, 2011
by PETER GRUNER
OUTSIDE rewiring work by contractors looks so unsightly that a block of single-storey flats at Angel is beginning to resemble a “B&Q warehouse”, residents claimed this week.
Their anger is directed at the “potentially dangerous” system of installing trunking wires and cables across ceilings and walls of walkways at the Popham estate, instead of burying them underground as is usual.
Last night (Thursday) more than 70 residents had signed a petition presented to a full council meeting calling for housing agency Homes for Islington (HfI) to stop the work and carry out an investigation.
The plea follows similar complaints throughout the borough about “trunking”, a system of installing utility wires across walls and ceilings inside flats. It is said to be quicker and cheaper than hiding them behind surfaces in the traditional way.
Sheila Casey, a leaseholder who has lived on the estate for 40 years, said: “They want to wreck the estate. Our walkways were always neat and welcoming. Now they look more like a B&Q warehouse. I’m too embarrassed to invite people home.
“There’s got to be a better way of installing cables and wires so they are not all so highly visible and ugly looking.”
Residents’ and tenants’ association secretary Martin Rutherford said people would never put up with it on a private estate.
“Our residents are proud to live here but the rewiring work is being done on the cheap and quite frankly looks a mess,” he added. “It’s also potentially dangerous, with electricity cables and gas installations criss-crossing across the walls and ceilings of the walkways.
“You have to ask what would happen if one of the gas cables leaked into an electrical installation.”
An HfI spokesman said: “Rewiring is carried out as part of our duty to ensure properties are safe and well maintained. Where the work is necessary and it is not possible to bury the wires in the walls, trunking is used. This is in compliance with national building regulations.
“When doing the works in tenants’ homes we discuss the route of the rewiring with them and try to reduce the impact and conceal it as much as possible. All our properties are inspected to ensure the works are completed to standard and are safe.”