Residents living with “damp and mould for more than four years” furious to be told problems “cannot be fixed overnight”

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

Residents living on an estate which they claim has been infested with damp and mould for “more than four years” have demanded the problem be fixed immediately.

Greenwich council has received a petition calling for fixes to be carried out in council homes on the Orchard and Coldbath Estate in Lewisham Road, Blackheath.

The petition said more than 500 council tenants and residents live on the estate, with “outstanding repairs” needed in the flats.

A council newsletter from last year said the authority planned on improving its repairs programme, and while work had begun, it could take until 2026 to finish.

Council documents also said transforming the repairs system “will not take place overnight,” but the petition called the nearly four-year-long schedule “wholly unacceptable,” and demanded a “more realistic” timetable.

Sarah Saitch, who started the campaign, said at a Greenwich council meeting on Thursday of last week, that the petition was sent shortly after August 2022, when the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) identified thousands of homes in Greenwich that the council had not carried out health and safety assessments for.

Ms Saitch said at the meeting: “Four years? Many tenants have been waiting years longer than that already, and yet the final sentence of the response says, ‘We can’t do things overnight’. Is that what the RSH is happy with?”

Labour councillor Pat Slattery, cabinet member for housing, said at the meeting that the council had reported itself to the RSH after councillors felt they were falling short on standards.

The cabinet member also said the response from the regulator was not directed to the council’s housing repairs team.

Cllr Slattery said: “The bulk of these repairs and improvements will be delivered by the end of four years, but they’re already being delivered now.”

The councillor said the repairs team were monitoring the timescale of the improvements, and that the waiting time when reporting repairs had been reduced since November last year.

Regarding the petition, officers said in council documents that the council was carrying out surveys for flats on the Orchard Estate to see if more investment was needed for the buildings.

The report said: “Residents will see a gradual improvement to services and will not wait four years to see a difference.

“However transformation of systems and culture will not take place overnight, and it would be misleading to residents to suggest otherwise.”

Council officers said residents of the Orchard Estate would be told the outcomes of the surveys in the coming months.

Pictured top: The mould in one of the flats (Picture: Sarah Saitch)