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Kensington MP launches attack on housing associations in report on local housing
The Labour MP for the constituency where Grenfell Tower is located has published a report which launches a strongly worded attack on the performance of housing associations in the area.
In a report on housing in her Kensington constituency, Emma Dent Coad accused the London giant Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) of being the housing association which is the “worst offender in Kensington”.
Her report said: “Despite making up around 29% of housing association properties in [the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, it makes] up more than 50% of my housing disrepair cases.”
The housing association rejected the accusations saying it “prides itself on providing quality homes”.
As an example, the MP’s report described the experience of an NHG resident whose ceiling collapsed after complaints about cracks were allegedly not dealt with.
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In 2016, two years after they moved in, Ms Dent Coad said, the housing association “literally plastered over the cracks”.
The report said: “In 2018, the ceiling began to collapse as [the resident] and their young child were watching TV. [The resident] grabbed the child and ran out of the room just in time. The ceiling had collapsed completely causing significant damage to their belongings and risking their lives.”
According to Ms Dent Coad, the housing officer told the resident: “These houses are 100 years old, it’s bound to happen. We can’t do anything about it.”
A spokesperson for NHG said: “Given the age of many of the properties we own and manage in the borough, ceiling collapses can happen as a result of leaks in concealed plumbing. This makes preventative maintenance incredibly difficult to plan, but when incidents do occur our policy is to treat it as a priority, and send contractors out promptly to make the home safe.
“Notting Hill Genesis prides itself on providing quality homes across the capital and beyond, giving tens of thousands of families a safe, warm place to live.
“We invest heavily in our stock and provide local neighbourhood management and when issues do arise, we strive to deal with them promptly. When we do get it wrong, we aim to resolve those issues as quickly as possible.
“We have a meeting arranged for February between our chief executive and Emma Dent Coad where we look forward to discussing her concerns in greater detail.”
As well as singling out NHG, the report criticised housing associations in general, saying they are “acting increasingly like businesses rather than social landlords working on behalf of their tenants”.
Ms Dent Coad said: “20 months ago, a series of catastrophic failures led to the most horrific fatal fire in my neighbourhood at Grenfell Tower, taking the lives of 72 of my neighbours and friends.
“KCTMO [Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation], which managed the building, has been all but dissolved and taken back in-house for now; I will review its progress later. But it truly alarms me that despite this avoidable atrocity, housing associations have not also stepped up to improve customer response and services.”
Kim Taylor-Smith, deputy leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, said: “This is something local authorities like mine wrestle with on a daily basis. Many organisations and companies in the UK, in the housing sector, seem to lack some of the core values required to make real differences to people’s lives.
“It is now 2019, it cannot be right that profit comes before helping some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It needs to change. Councils not only need to build, but we need to get tough and demand higher quality housing for a better price, this includes the biggest issue of them all for residents – repairs and maintenance, where housing associations are often the worst culprits.”
Update: at 14.15 on 5.2.19 This story was updated to include a comment from Mr Taylor-Smith.
