Cold and damp misery for Bayswater estate - Hallfield still waiting for promised £5m repairs

Published: 19 March 2010
by JAMIE WELHAM

PENSIONERS and young families on a Bayswater housing estate are living in “freezing” conditions because of delays to repairs that should have started three years ago.

MP Karen Buck has urged Westminster Council’s housing contractor to take immediate action after a survey by environmental health officers revealed homes on the Hallfield Estate failed to meet the government’s Decent Homes standard because of “excess cold”.

Dozens of tenants, many of them elderly or families with young children, say they cannot face the prospect of an­other winter with inadequate windows and soaring heating bills.

The £5million earmarked for the repairs has sat in council coffers for the past three years because of a hold-up understood to have been caused by a group of leaseholders who are unhappy about paying for the work.

The windows have not been replaced since the estate was built at the beginning of the 1960s.

Ms Buck, who represents Regent’s Park and Kensington North, has branded the situation a “disgrace”.

Distressed families told the West End Extra they were suffering from insomnia and recurring health problems, with some having to vacate entire rooms be­cause of the “arctic” conditions.

Samira Saeed, who has lived in her two-bedroom flat with her two young children for five years, said: “We all sleep in the living room, and stuff our clothes under the doors. It is not good. My children don’t sleep very well and it affects their school work. Even with the heating on it is freezing, and my bills are so high I won’t be able to afford it. Last month it cost something like £200.”

A pensioner who lives on the estate with her disabled husband said: “We have to keep the heating on constantly and with today’s rising prices we are soon going to have another problem: Heat or Eat.”

Hallfield Estate was built in the 1960s and comprises 682 flats, just under half of which are council tenants, spread across 15 blocks.

CityWest Homes, the arms length management organisation which looks after Westminster’s social housing stock, has said work will get under way next year, meaning tenants could face another freezing winter.

Ms Buck said: “The money has been there for three years and people are suffering. Some of the stories are very distressing. There are a lot of elderly and vulnerable living here. I will keep the pressure up on Westminster Council to get this going.

A spokeswoman for CityWest said: “We were asked to delay the works by residents who wanted to explore the option of becoming a Tenant Management Organisation (TMO). At this time the windows were in reasonable condition and so we reallocated the funding for this work until 2011. 

“This has been an exceptionally cold winter and we do apologise to the residents of these properties who have experienced problem in keeping their flats warm.”