Below par, not 3-star

Published: 29 October, 2010

• ON the Popham estate, I regularly get calls from tenants who cannot understand how the contractors work out whose property needs rewiring, and whose doesn’t. Wiring ‘tests’ are carried out, but the results kept secret. Some people are told their wiring passed and that it doesn’t need replacing. Then I am told by Homes for Islington (HfI) that all the wiring needs replacing because it “wears out”.  

Residents receive letters from HfI threatening that, unless they allow access within 14 days for work to be carried out, their homes will be accessed by force. But these letters arrive without any previous attempts to contact residents by more civilised means. I have heard stories of pensioners reduced to tears when they receive letters of this sort.

Then there is the question of surface-mounted trunking, which is being installed as part of the rewiring work, and whether it is required. I have been shown many flats where trunking runs all over walls and ceilings, light switches are replaced three inches away from where they were, ruining decorations, and ceiling roses fitted three inches from light fittings, with a bit of wire between the two. 

So I asked to be shown a flat where HfI considered the amount and routing of the trunking was acceptable. Surprisingly, most of the wiring had been pulled through the walls and ceiling, and what trunking there was had been discreetly positioned next to door frames and skirtings. If this flat can be rewired intelligently, why weren’t the rest?

And then to Cluse Court, where tenants asked me to visit them after their home had been flooded three times while the Decent Homes work was going on. I got down under the sink to see whether the pipe where one of the floods happened was still leaking. It wasn’t, but I noticed that the new drain pipe to the sink had been installed so that part of the pipe went up instead of down, as it ran away from the sink. This does not comply with building regulations, and guarantees persistent blockages of the pipe in the future, in an inaccessible place behind the kitchen units.  

I pointed this out to HfI, which immediately had the pipe re-fitted, and then took disciplinary action against the fitter. Why does it take a councillor visiting to spot this kind of unacceptable workmanship, and what would I find if I visited all the other flats in the block? 

Then to cap it all, the same tenants tell me they had to get the emergency repairs team out the following Saturday night because all the walkway drains had blocked during heavy rain. The cause of the blockage turned out to be plaster emptied down the drains. Something is clearly not going very well. 

 My fellow ward councillors, Gary Doolan and Shelley Coupland, and Councillor James Murray, executive member for housing, are trying to find out what is going wrong, and what needs to be done to fix it.  

Clearly, the level of service experienced by residents is pretty poor, and is a long way from the three-star rating that the Lib Dems are even now still boasting about at council meetings. 

What is beyond doubt is that things cannot, complacently, stay as they are.

CLLR MARTIN KLUTE
Labour, St Peter’s ward