The appalling conditions in ‘luxury apartments’ in new-build flats at The Fold, opposite Croydon Town Hall, were raised with a House of Commons select committee hearing yesterday
High maintenance: The Fold, at 35 storeys, was completed in 2021, opened in 2022. All tenants have been told they must leave before March 2026
Leading housing campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa cited The Fold in central Croydon as an example of the disastrous consequences of an unchecked and untrammelled “Build Baby Build” policy from the Labour government in order to hit its target of 1.5million new homes by 2029.
“If you think we have a housing crisis at the moment, we’re going to have an even bigger one in 15 years’ time when some of these homes have to be torn down because the quality is so bad and they fall apart,” he said.
Tweneboa was appearing in front of MPs on the housing, communities and local government select committee who notionally provide a scrutiny function over the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, where Croydon MP Steve Reed is Secretary of State.
Since taking on the role, Reed has donned ridiculous-looking red MAGA-style hats to his puerile new catchphrase of “Build Baby Build”, pledging to sweep away rafts of planning legislation and local controls.
But even with the current planning controls in place, some local authorities, such as Croydon, have managed to oversee disastrous new-build developments, such as The Fold in the Queen’s Quarter development on the site of the council’s former office building, Taberner House.
“I am shocked at the quality of some of the new builds going up at the moment,” Tweneboa told the select committee – perhaps mindful, too, of some of the many problems left behind by Croydon Council’s housebuilders, Brick by Brick.
Puerile: MP Steve Reed
Tweneboa named The Fold, a 35-storey tower with 251 homes which opened to residents just three years ago, but which is to be evacuated completely within six months so that the interior of the building can be stripped back and re-built to overcome constant leaks, human excrement bubbling up into people’s bathrooms and persistent mould.
“I’ve been to that building,” Tweneboa said. “It’s a massive building, it’s a private block at the moment but they have an identical social home next door which I don’t know if it’s open yet or not.” It is. It’s called Malcolm Wicks House, and has 90 council flats. Croydon Council has told its tenants that there are no problems with their building, despite it being built at the same time as The Fold, and by the same firm of builders.
Tweneboa recalled how he had visited The Fold in 2024. “Conditions are really, really bad. I went there, visited collapsed ceilings, damp and mould, sewage leaks, residents in some cases paid £3,000 per month to rent in that block, it’s a new build.
“The builders built it, handed it over, went into administration, as far as I’m aware, probably went and set up elsewhere, but now the landlord can’t chase in order for repairs to be carried out and therefore cannot afford it, and that’s my worry about new builds that are going up.
“We need to be making sure now in the beginning that we are focusing on getting it right and building homes that last, rather than waiting five years… knock up 1.5million homes and then find out in 10 years from now they begin to start falling apart.”
Lambeth walk: Florence Eshalomi is the south London MP who chairs the select committee which scrutinises Reed’s department
The select committee chair is Labour’s Vauxhall MP, Florence Eshalomi, a former councillor colleague of Reed’s in their time at Brixton Town Hall.
Opening the evidence session, Eshalomi referred to a predecessor committee’s report in 2022 which found that, “The condition of some social housing stock had deteriorated so far as to be unfit for human habitation.”
That previous report was commissioned in large part as a response to the scandalous condition of council flats at Regina Road in Croydon, exposed by television news reports in 2021.
Yesterday, talking of social housing generally across England, Eshalomi said, “We know that the situation now in 2025 in some cases hasn’t improved… in some cases it’s actually worse.”
Tweneboa first started campaigning over poor conditions in social housing five years ago when he encountered the council flats on the Eastfields Estate in Merton, where family members lived.
He has since emerged as a powerful “super-advocate” for the homeless and social tenants who are so often ignored by the authorities.
His viral social media messaging has been followed up by newspaper articles, interviews and a book. Someone might want to buy a copy for Reed. Or read it to him.
Last year, Tweneboa exposed the conditions in The Fold when he video’d the collapsed ceilings, leaks and mould in one of the private rental flats in the new-build tower block.
Build Baby Build: there are massive problems over build quality, or lack of it, at The Fold
Yesterday, asked about the state of the housing crisis generally, Tweneboa said: “Some of the cases that I’m dealing with are far worse than what I was dealing with when I first started.
“There is still serious concern surrounding health and safety of many of the residents that I deal with. A massive part of the issue is stigma, unprofessionalism, a lack of serious accountability and action.
“And it means tenants don’t feel like things have improved.
“There’s a lot of lip service, but from what I’ve seen, not enough action happening in terms of really tackling this crisis, especially more than eight years on since Grenfell.”
Tweneboa’s disdain for the way Lambeth Council fails its tenants and the homeless under its care was clear in this passionate account of one case, as shown in this video:
As an object lesson in how not to provide the housing which, we are told repeatedly is desperately needed, The Fold is a £100million casebook example.
Inside Croydon was the first to report how all remaining tenants in the 251-flat tower have been ordered to vacate their homes in six months, to allow for a complete refit of the building.
Last month, before the remaining tenants got their “notice to quit” emails, it was reckoned that around half the flats in the building were already empty, as residents had already decided to seek accommodation in properties less damaging to their health.
Residents have also had to endure repeated outages of their water supply, as well as lack of heating, and regular lift breakdowns which have placed some tenants in serious danger.
Last month, the London Fire Brigade conducted an urgent safety inspection at the request of residents concerned at poorly fitted fire doors and fire shutters that do not work. The block’s managers insisted the building was entirely safe – until a couple of weeks later, they took urgent action to instal smoke alarms and appointed a “waking watch” when they “discovered” that The Fold’s fire alarm system was faulty.
It was not until May 2024 – almost two years after The Fold greeted its first tenants – that building engineers discovered a soil pipe behind the walls which was cracked, believed to be the source of leaks and mould. Yet even after that was repaired, leaks of sewage continued. The building’s reception area had scaffolding erected on a near-permanent basis, with tarpaulin to capture water seeping from its ceiling.
At a recent residents’ emergency meeting, one said: “Let us be free from this hellhole!”
The Fold is one of four blocks, built on the site of Taberner House, the former Croydon Council office building, and providing more than 500 homes.
Croydon Council granted planning permission for the overall scheme in January 2018, including The Fold, and with only a single staircase to its 35th floor.
This design was approved by Croydon Council planners six months after the Grenfell Tower disaster in which 72 people died, where the lack of a second staircase in a tall residential tower was seen as a contributory factor in the tragedy’s appalling death toll.
The scheme on council property on a public green space next to the Town Hall was developed by Hub, overseen by the then Labour-controlled authority where Alison Butler was the cabinet member for housing. Butler and her colleagues, Tony Newman and Paul Scott, were also responsible for setting up council house-builders Brick by Brick and oversaw the scandal of the slum conditions in council flats in Regina Road.
Today, the residents of The Fold are being represented in their battle for justice with L&G by ACORN, the community union. “Legal and General is the largest asset management business in the UK, ranking in the top 20 largest global asset management companies with more than £1trillion in assets under management,” an ACORN rep told Inside Croydon.
“This situation can only be explained by sheer corporate greed, neglect and the exploitation of our members.”
L&Q, the housing association which manages the two other residential blocks built in Queen’s Quarter by the now out-of-business Henry Construct, is conducting urgent surveys and engineer checks on the build quality in those homes.
Read more: The Fold folds: Hundreds of tenants given six months to leave
Read more: Solution to housing crisis is clear – but who will implement it?
Read more: Investigation into housing scandal finds systemic failure and incompetence
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