DEFIANT OAPS TO BE EVICTED AT CHRISTMAS

Published: 19 November, 2010
by TOM FOOT

TWO pensioners who have defiantly resisted intense pressure from City Hall to leave a historic elderly people’s home for three years are facing eviction this Christmas.

Sante Zanello, 72, and Herbert Tang, 74, were this week given the devastating news that wealthy landlords Howard de Walden have applied for permission to demolish Macintosh House in Beaumont Street – sheltered housing run by Westminster Council – where the pair live.

They have been living alone in the spacious 30-room, four-storey block in Marylebone in a stand-off with Westminster Council after housing chiefs paid tenants to leave because it did not meet government standards and was too expensive to maintain.

Mr Zanello, a former maitre d’ in top West End hotels including the Dorchester and Park Lane, said: “Neither of us received a letter about this. How can that be? I have lived here for  40  years.  Everywhere  else  they haveoffered me has not been in good areas like this. I do not want to leave. All my friends who have left, they say to me, ‘Sante, I wish I was in Macintosh House’.”

During the dispute, City Hall officials removed the communal television, books and snooker table from Macintosh House and later refused to collect the rubbish in a bid to oust Mr Zanello and Mr Tang.

One by one, the other tenants left the building, lured by the £3,500 offer to go.

Mr Zanello said he was upset to discover this week that Howard de Walden submitted a planning application to Westminster Council in September.

It outlines a plan to demolish Macintosh House and replace it with a five and six-storey building containing 25 rooms with communal bathroom and a common room. A decision will be taken on December 23 – two days before Christmas.

Westminster Council has a lease on the building until 2065 – it contains a special covenant ensuring the land would always be used to house the elderly at low rents.

Under the plans, a second basement tier would be excavated beneath Macintosh House that would be used to store “medical supplies” for the King Edward VII Hospital, a private hospital frequented by the Queen.

The application from Howard de Walden Estates says that “in order to fund replacement of the site to provide modern accommodation, which remains low cost, it is necessary to introduce a commercial element to the site”.

In a letter to Mark Field MP, resident Derek Morton, who lives behind the building in Macintosh Mews, said: “Only myself and another resident were sent notice of the planning application, neither the other residents in Beaumont Mews nor the residents of Macintosh House have been informed.”

A 99-year-lease on the building was given to council in 1962 using money left in a will of celebrated housing and women’s rights campaigner Lady Macintosh.

Cllr Philippa Roe, Westminster Council’s cabinet member for housing, said: “Macintosh House, as it is, is not fit for purpose and does not meet modern standards, with facilities such as shared bathrooms.

“We have successfully rehoused nearly all residents into better quality housing. However, there are currently two tenants remaining to whom we have offered more than 10 alternative properties in the area which are of a much higher standard which so far have been refused by the tenants. We will continue to work with them to try and resolve this situation.”