Residents confused after council ‘officially names’ building on estate that is pile of rubble

By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Reporter

Residents on an estate were left confused after a council announced the name of a new building even though it’s currently just a pile of rubble.

Southwark council revealed the “official name” of the new eight-storey block on the Slippers estate in Slippers Place, Bermondsey, as Hester Biddle Court in an email sent on October 18.

But the news has left existing residents with more questions than answers as Hester Biddle Court is presently just a heap of fenced-off debris. They claim work on the site ground to a halt almost a year ago and no one has been seen there since.

Katie Phillips, 43, who lives in Matson House which is next to the planned block, said she couldn’t understand why the council had named the building when residents hadn’t been updated on the development’s progress for more than six months.

She said: “I was surprised to receive that. It’s okay naming it but we’ve not had an update about what’s going on. Then you are sending us an email saying we have named it. Why are you asking residents about naming it? We’ve not been listened to.”

Plans to build an eight-storey block with 18 social rent flats on a car park on the Bermondsey estate were approved by Southwark council in November 2021, despite opposition from a number of residents whose homes overlook the site.

Residents said workers dug up and fenced off the car park throughout 2022 in preparation for the build. But they said they hadn’t seen any workers on site since, making them doubt whether the development was still going ahead.

Ms Phillips, whose house is directly next to the planned block, is one of the residents who objected to the development. She believes the proposed building is too close to Matson House and will tower over her home.

She said: “There are seven balconies on the front of it [Hester Biddle Court]. They are going to be looking in my garden. I’ve got earplugs to block out [noise from the building work] and I’m sat here vibrating on my own settee.”

Ms Phillips said she wasn’t against houses being built but believed the development needed to be scaled back.

“It’s about making it fair,” she added. “Half of Southwark has been sold off to private developers and they are shoehorning blocks of flats on the car parks and everything else at the detriment of existing residents.”

Her upstairs neighbour Farooq Sofi was equally unhappy about the development. The 46-year-old said he struggles to find a place to put his car since the parking spaces were removed and said the fenced-off building site was attracting antisocial behaviour.

He said: “I’m not happy at all. Every night and day I have to park my car on the other side of the street now and I keep getting parking tickets. [We get] dirty people coming and sitting and smoking out. It was not like that before. Nobody came to sit because it was just parking.”

Councillor Helen Dennis, the Southwark’s cabinet member for new homes, said: “Building works have been slower than originally anticipated due to adjustments in building regulations which have required us to amend some aspects of the design. Our contractors also found that some extra groundwork was needed before the main works can begin together with associated enabling works.”

Pictured top: Katie Phillips’s home on the Slippers estate in Bermondsey is next to the building site (Picture: Robert Firth)