Homes for Islington boss Eamon McGoldrick is called to crisis talks

Published: 29 October, 2010
by PETER GRUNER

SENIOR Labour politicians have called for crisis talks with the beleaguered boss of Homes for Islington.

Its chief executive Eamon McGoldrick has been “read the riot act” because of furious councillors’ concerns over accountability, perceived threats in an HfI letter to tenants and claims of “poor service” at the arms-length management organisation which administers the council’s 21,500 homes and 8,000 leasehold properties.

Mr McGoldrick is due to meet Executive Member for Housing Councillor James Murray on Monday to discuss major problems over electrical rewiring and the way forward.

It also follows calls from some leaseholders’ and politicians to bring housing back in-house. 

Ahead of the meeting Mr McGoldrick preferred not to speak to the Islington Tribune, but a spokesman for HfI said: “We are aware of the issue regarding the electrical wiring and we are meeting with councillors next week to discuss a way forward. Whatever the outcome we need to ensure the safety of our residents is at the centre of what we do. We apologise for any distress this letter may have caused our residents.” 

Labour chairman of the Health Scrutiny Committee, Martin Klute, who is also expected to attend the talks, said: “I’ve had to read the riot act to Eamon. Every time I write to him with complaints from tenants I get a letter back saying that he’s passed my enquiry onto someone else.”

Councillor Klute added: “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.”

Tenants on the Popham estate, Angel, protested that they received “threatening letters” from HfI ordering them to allow contractors into their homes for electrical re-wiring work or face being taken to court.

The tenants are currently refusing to allow  HfI contractors in to “trunk” cables across living room walls and ceilings. Trunking is a cheap and quick system of re-wiring but, say tenants, “extremely unsightly”. They want wires hidden behind walls.

The letter from a consultation officer with  HfI, claimed that the residents’ homes had been identified as “requiring re-wiring which will include trunking.” It added: “You should be aware that if it becomes necessary for  HfI to seek access from the courts we will seek to recover our costs for forced entry from you.”

Cllr Klute said the letters had been sent 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,” he added. “Why should people who have spent thousands of pounds of their own money decorating their homes have to put up with ugly cables across their walls? There is an intelligent way to rewire homes.”

His Labour colleague Cllr Gary Doolan said he had been inundated with complaints about  HfI by residents from all over the borough. 

“Trunking is one of the biggest causes of complaints,” he said. 

“No one from HfI appears to be monitoring the work but there have been other issues. We had a new toilet fitted in one flat but the tenant wasn’t able to close the toilet door.”

Cllr Doolan called for the council to discuss the repairs service as a matter of urgency under a public scrutiny panel.

He added: “It has been agreed, now I want to know when it is going to happen.”

Patricia Nolan, vice-chairwoman of the Popham Tenants’ and Residents’ Association, and her husband Peter, received a letter about re-wiring from HfI. 

“It was extremely upsetting and threatening,” said Ms Nolan. “We have spent several thousand pounds decorating our flat. We don’t want trunking work.”

The list of other complaints in the Angel area includes security gates that are difficult to open on the Popham estate and poor plumbing skills at Cluse Court, for which disciplinary action was taken against one workman.

Martin Rutherford, tenants’ representative at Popham estate, said HfI departments were not speaking to one another. 

“No one seems to know what the other person is doing,” he said.