Activist exposes serious issues with town centre ‘luxury apartments’ which were only built three years ago
The housing crisis takes on a whole new meaning when you are a private tenant, living in a building completed just three years ago and paying as much as £3,000 per month in rent and yet have to contend with leaking roofs, sewage problems, mould throughout the property and ceilings that collapse.
High maintenance: The Fold, at 35 storeys, is the tallest block in the Queen’s Quarter, completed in 2021
Croydon Council was condemned in 2021 when the appalling, unsafe and unsanitary conditions of council flats in blocks in South Norwood, at Regina Road, were exposed on national television.
But now a block that was built on former council-owned land by private developers in a Build To Rent scheme and only completed in 2021 has been exposed as having living conditions little better than what appeared in that TV news report.
The Fold is a 35-storey residential tower close to the Croydon Flyover, one of the blocks built on the site of the former council offices, Taberner House, and Queen’s Gardens.
Campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa yesterday exposed the slum-like conditions in two of the apartments, posting a shocking video on his social media feed. Tweneboa, the author Our Country in Crisis: Britain’s Housing Emergency and How We Rebuild, claimed in his report that the deteriorating conditions, leaks and mould had all been reported to the building’s management company, and ignored.
Calls by Inside Croydon to the phone number on the company’s website elicited nothing much better: after being told who we were and why we were calling, the person at the other end simply hung up.
Ceiling crisis: Tweneboa’s video shows two flats where ceilings have collapsed because of leaks
Green councillors for Fairfield ward, the area where The Fold is located, relate that building “concierges” have denied them access to tenants when they have tried to visit.
Not only have tenants been let down by their landlords here, they have also been let down by their local authority – the council. The Fold is literally just across the road from Fisher’s Folly, the council offices.
Yet there appears to have been no effort to intercede over the state of the flats by the council’s building standards department, which has a legal responsibility to ensure that new builds meet at least minimum standards.
Four residential blocks were built on the Taberner House site and part of the once-public park – two were for L&Q, the housing association, for shared ownership and London Living Rent. A third block – Malcolm Wicks House – provided 90 flats for council homes.
The final block, given the supposedly “edgy” name of The Fold, was made up of 251 flats and is owned by insurance and pensions giant Legal and General.
Flats are still available in The Fold: from £1,500 per calendar month (plus a £1,500 deposit) for a small one-bed flat, and from £2,277 to £3,000 per calendar month for three-bed flats (plus the deposit, natch).
According to the company managing the building: “There’s a happier and easier way to rent in Croydon and it’s called The Fold.” They add that the building is “just a short walk from Boxpark”, as if that’s somehow a good thing.
Not cheap: rents are sky high in THe Fold
“The Fold is more than just a home. It’s a whole new way of life, with a built-in social scene. A place where you are free to express your individuality – you can paint the walls, bring your pets, meet like-minded folk, take part in community events, host friends in the dining rooms, stretch in a rooftop yoga session…
“And that’s just the start.”
Well yes, there’s the mouldy cupboards and walls, the leaking ceiling and then there’s the sewage…
In his video, Tweneboa says: “Thinking of buying or renting a new-build home? I’ve visited one. It’s falling apart.
“Residents moved into this Croydon block in 2022. This is the state of it now…
“Urban Bubble are said to be the management agent and were described by a resident as being ‘shit’.
“They said complaints haven’t been taken seriously, disrepair hasn’t been dealt with and some residents have said they’ve found it so bad, they’re moving out.
“Residents don’t know who the landlord is but say it’s the responsibility of Urban Bubble to deal with their complaints and issues. Multiple residents reported falling sick because of how bad the mould has been.
Persistent problem: the video shows black mould in similar locations in
“It’s a block filled with private renters,” Tweneboa said.
“This building has had residents in it for two years and is in this state.
“Residents showed me pictures of a leak not long ago. It appeared the leak also contained…” Tweneboa’s tweet was punctuated with a turd emojee.
Tweneboa then takes his viewers on a video tour of the brand new flat. The purpose-built storage cupboards are covered “floor to ceiling” in black mould, and there’s more evidence of damp and mould on the walls of the living area and kitchen next door, too.
“They’re paying £1,500 to £3,000 to live here, yet when they complain, they are not listened to.”
In a second apartment, Tweneboa has filmed a gaping hole in a bedroom ceiling, likely caused by a long-term water leak. “They’d been complaining about leaks, they say, to the management agent, but they did nothing. And now a ceiling’s come down.”
This second apartment is shown as having black mould in similar areas to the first flat. A second collapsed ceiling, this time over a kitchen-diner area, and evidence of a sewage leak in the basement are also shown.
“This is what you get after you’ve had a government, the developers’ friends, who have spent a decade and a half reducing and deleting building regulations, while cutting off funds to local authorities so that councils can no longer carry out basic building standards checks,” according to a Katharine Street source.
“The conditions of these flats are appalling. Yet the tenants appear to have no real redress with the managing agents.
“There have to be serious concerns that the social housing and council homes in neighbouring blocks – designed by the same architects, built by the same developers – may exhibit similar issues. They were built using £100million-worth of grants from the Mayor of London.
“Just what are the authorities – the council, Mayor Perry, the Mayor of London, the Housing Ombudsman – going to do to hold these landlords and their agents to account and ensure that people have decent homes to live in?”
Read more: Solution to housing crisis is clear – but who will implement it?
Read more: Investigation into housing scandal finds systemic failure and incompetence
Read more: Croydon shamed over ‘dangerous squalor’ in council flats
Read more: Ombudsman demands culture change after council flats ‘shock’
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This really should be a massive scandal.
The Fold, the other blocks in Queen’s Gardens, and several other new builds and office conversions in the town centre have countless issues (see Delta Point).
Green Councillors have been shown a lot of disrespect by some of the managing companies of these largely private-rented flats, who will ignore communications. Councillors have been refused access to speak with residents in several blocks of flats by the concierges (some also refuse addressed communications from being delivered to residents). It is just sad that it has come to this stage.
Lack of scrutiny, poor planning, government cuts in funding, poor leadership, and councillors who were cosy with developers. If Labour-controlled Lambeth, and the previously Labour-controlled Croydon, are examples of how Labour in government will be on planning and housing, I see no real hope for the future.
They say they are going to build build build to try and hit all these housing targets, they never said it was going to be quality housing. These build to rent companies just cut corners and this is what happens.
To add insult to injury this was all done on cheaply sold off publicly owned land.
And the £100m subsidy from the GLA…
It is not really a party political problem because the main parties are as bad as each other. Labour bankrupted Croydon, the Tories crashed the National economy, and Sutton has been in Lib Dem control for years and have failures in their patch like the Beddington incinerator and the BedZed power supply scandal. Perhaps the Green party are the best bet(?); they have never run anything in the UK before, which has got to make them worth a try compared to the bigger parties who are so experienced at ruining the country ?!
They did run Brighton. There’s an interesting article by Julie Burchill in the Spectator of 12 August 2023.
Burchill and The Spectator? Yuergh!
Almost all Managing Agents are lazy, useless and timewasting parasites who are obsessed with concealing information.
Having a right of Manage I’ve sacked mine on a regular basis. They usually start off okay for the first year or so but after that they start taking the Mickey, going Arthur Daley and assuming you’re a mug. Despite many having the organisational skills of Laurel and Hardy they hilariously all sign their emails with their academic qualifications as if you need a BSC to lay paving slabs properly.
A favourite scam is to claim all works required a Section 20 process which you then time to end in the middle of winter so no work can be done because the rain would damage the paint and there are limited daylight hours. It then expires and you can pay yourself to do all the paperwork again. Another is losing the routine works specifications and claiming that you literally don’t know what you’re doing because the previous fly-by-night shafters didn’t had over all the documents.
I would say the sector is crying out for regulation except that they always manage to find regulations for not doing anything, such as refusing to replace a rotting wooden window at the end of its 40 year lifespan with a UPVC one because this is a “lease variation that needs a referendum and escalation to the First Tier Tribunal”. Never-the-less better regulation is definitely needed for these unaccountable middle men…
How can residents not know who their landlord is? First of all it should be on their shorthold agreements, by law.
If not, all that is needed is a couple of minutes research and a few quid:
1. Query the Land Registry for the owner of the freehold. Cost = same as a latte
2. If it turns out to be a shell company, query Companies House for “persons of significant control”. Cost = free
3. If THAT is also a shell company, rinse and repeat 2.
4. If you come across a foreign shell company, query the company registry of that country, in this case… Jersey. Cost = an inexpensive summer dress
5. You are done. However, for the extra curious, run a Companies House search again, this time for the name you got from the Jersey authorities. Cost = free
6. Now you have the landlord’s home address(es), where your solicitors will be able to serve.
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I am intrigued to understand how such poor quality building works managed to be completed and passed under the noses of the Croydon Council planning department based in the building next door.