EXCLUSIVE: The winding up of Brick by Brick won’t see an end to the misery being suffered by those who bought homes or live as leaseholders in properties built by the Croydon Council-owned housing company.
By our housing correspondent, BARRATT HOLMES
There’s a growing band of Croydon residents who have good cause to regret that their council ever dabbled with a property development business. The tinge of regret is not just when they receive their ballooning Council Tax bills, but nearly every day.
For these are the Croydon residents who have set up home in flats and houses built by Brick by Brick, the housing company that did much to bankrupt the borough.
Inside Croydon has reported before on the litany of issues residents have experienced since purchasing their properties, or part-purchasing them, from the council-owned developer. These include defects in the build, routine maintenance issues that have not been addressed, solar panels that have not provided any benefit to residents and concerns over fire risk assessments where recommendations made in 2022 have never been acted upon.
Some Brick by Brick houses were sold for close to half-a-million pounds.
Brick by Brick is now a zombie housing company, its operations being wound down.
The flash offices set up at huge cost by Colm Lacey, the BxB managing director, have long since closed and from the company’s one-time complement of 45 staff, there’s precious few remaining, if any, even to handle routine admin.
Shut up shop: BxB’s £1m offices and showroom on George Street closed in 2020
Brick by Brick’s complaints policy misleadingly suggests that residents can access the Housing Ombudsman. But Brick by Brick was never signed up as a member of the Ombudsman scheme, thereby leaving residents no option short of legal action – potentially against a council-owned, insolvent company which may soon not exist at all.
Home-owners and leaseholders can’t even get resolution to their issues by going to Brick by Brick’s shareholder, Croydon Council. A meeting last year with Mayor Jason Perry and involving residents living in Brick by Brick developments including Auckland Rise, Sylvan Hill and Church Road, provided little in the way of peace of mind, and certainly no resolution.
And now, residents in some properties are being asked to cough up for new CCTV cameras, because the anti-crime equipment has been… nicked.
And no one, at Brick by Brick or the council, managed to submit a prompt insurance claim, or even file a crime report with the police.
Inside Croydon is aware of freeholders and leaseholders living in at least six BxB developments who have had cause to report significant snagging issues. Such matters would usually be resolved by the developer, but, well…
Some properties are now experiencing water leaks, due to poor construction or groundworks. Then there is the non-issue of mandatory legal documents and the poor oversight of different management companies that have led to residents being sent huge service charge bills with no evidence of costs incurred.
Shared-ownership properties have strictly controlled rent rises but there are typically no similar limits on service charges.
Some of the residents in supposedly “affordable” shared ownership homes built in Crystal Palace by the council-owned developer were hit last year with a 35% service charge hike.
Some disputes have now gone to law, with residents accusing BxB management companies of raising excessive bills without justifying the costs.
Other residents of BxB homes are also feeling vulnerable.
Who is responsible?: no one at BxB or Croydon Council appears prepared to deal with concerns of residents living in homes built by the zombie housing company
The CCTV cameras that were installed in one block of flats to deter anti-social behaviour and worse have, well… been stolen.
Of the few staff remaining at Brick by Brick, no one seems to know what happened to the anti-crime cameras. “They clearly didn’t take keys back from past contractors or managing agents,” a Town Hall source said.
Brick by Brick did not even bother to report the theft to the police.
“A police report has not been raised at present as we have no evidence to support the report by way of recording, sightings, or a particular person of interest,” residents were told in an email from Brick by Brick.
Without a police crime number, there can, of course, be no insurance claim. To add insult to injury, Brick by Brick wanted the residents to stump up the estimated £1,800 cost of replacement cameras.
“I just feel like this sums up the absolute lack of care and consideration Brick by Brick has for residents,” one leaseholder said.
“How long has some unknown party had full access to our building without our knowledge?”
FOOTNOTE: Where are they now?: In 2021, Colm Lacey, the Brick by Brick managing director who could neither manage nor direct, scuttled away from Croydon, where he had first been employed as a member of council staff before being handed the big job at Brick by Brick and £200million-worth of council loans.
Soft Cities bullshit: Colm Lacey’s still trying to convince people he’s a successful developer. Just not so successfully
Unlike Jo Negrini, his mentor and mate, Lacey didn’t get a golden handshake. Nor did he ever get his collar felt, because as has been well-established, being incompetent is not a criminal offence.
With a portfolio of expensively developed CGIs of buildings never built tucked under his arm, Lacey set himself up as a director of “a small consultancy practice offering a variety of services to the design, development and construction industries”. He called his company Soft Cities.
Today, Companies House published “accounts for a dormant company made up to 30 September 2024”.
Colm Lacey’s Soft Cities has cash in bank or in-hand of £1,867. The same amount that was in the company account in 2023.
So maybe bullshit doesn’t always baffle brains?
Read more: Brick by Brick residents tell Mayor Perry: ‘We’ve had enough’
Read more: How myth of shared ownership has made housing crisis worse
Read more: Feeling the heat as residents are stung with 775% price hike
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And still nobody has been punished for bankrupting Croydon Council, so it is little wonder that the current incumbents, Piss-Poor Perry and The Kerswell, continue to squander money with impunity !
Well said Jim!
Don’t forget the clowns who used to trumpet Brick by Brick and are still active in Civic Life. Councillor Sean Fitzsimmons who used to state incessantly the high build quality of the properties and how the company would make a profit for the council in a virtuous circle of development while head of the Committee scrutinising the expenditure of this malevolent farce of an organisation. Now Chairman of the Council General Purpose Committee and acts if nothing at all happened.
Sean Fitzsimmons is a total waste of space. He loves chairing committee meetings pompously and importantly but judging on results and not effort he is 0% effective.
Such an ironic and sad reminder — even CCTV cameras meant to stop crime aren’t safe from being stolen. It really shows how important it is to secure security itself
I have a very modest CCTV system which I find useful. I can view recordings from my home or from elsewhere. If the CCTV cameras are sited outside the building, they can be nicked, of course, but they will have recorded the theft. Does nobody know where these recordings can be found, possibly identifying the thieves? Or were the cameras and base units with hard drives removed to be reinstalled elsewhere without telling the residents?