13 Left To Freeze Over Christmas

You couldn’t make it up. 

Some lucky residents of Haringey are spending this Christmas hoping that that an emergency electric heater will keep their homes going over the ‘festive’ period – because the gas has been switched off. 

The majority of residents have been moved out of Tangmere block on the Broadwater Farm estate due to safety concerns about its original construction. 

However, 13 households are left behind.  Due to fears about the effect of gas explosions on the faulty Large Panel System construction, Cadent switched off the gas to the building on 26/11/2018. 

Residents have been provided with electric heaters but these are not sufficient to keep all flats warm. 

The cost of heating the flats with electric heaters is very high-up to £100 a week and some residents are still to receive promised money from Homes for Haringey to cover this cost. 

This is causing financial difficulties and is leading some residents to restrict the heating of their homes further as conversations with the writer of this press release have shown.

The Haringey Cabinet was informed of this situation prior to their meeting of 11/12/18 (see email cut and paste below.)

The webcast of this meeting shows (at 29 minutes) the Deputy Leader giving the figure of 13 households. 

Shockingly (at 32 minutes) a Council officer states that the issue of residents left in Tangmere will be revisited in the new year which is obviously too late.

The Webcast is here: https://haringey.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/391304

The  Council Cabinet were warned on 26th June that they would not be able to move everyone out of the Tangmere by 30th October (the deadline that Cadent had given at the time.) 

The writer of this press release demanded that the Cabinet should install a temporary boiler to provide district heating at the foot of the block.  These boilers have been installed for 9 other blocks on the Broadwater Farm due to safety concerns about gas boilers inside the blocks. 

This would have enabled residents of Tangmere to be moved out in a more humane fashion.

While it is true that some residents do feel able to keep their flats warm and have received payments, some have not more than 2 weeks after the shut-off as conversations with residents has shown.  This patchy approach is very concerning. 

In addition, Haringey Council is not addressing the issue that electric heaters are clearly not enough to keep a 3 bed flat warm even if this is more feasible in a one bedroom flat. 

Also, there is the issue that temperatures are likely to get colder over the next few weeks and more and more left behind residents are likely to suffer.

Haringey Council has repeatedly show a callous attitude to the residents of Tangmere.  Fears about the health and safety of residents once the gas has been switched off have been dismissed. 

The council’s attitude seems to have been to move the residents out as quickly as possible without any assessment of the risk of their actions in terms of leaving residents without adequate heating.

Background 

The Large Panel System Problem and the Temporary Boilers
Gas is being removed from all blocks that currently have it on the Broadwater Farm estate.  This is due to a safety problem with the Large Panel System that has existed since the time of construction in the late 1960s.

Basically no block on Broadwater Farm should have piped gas because of the danger of disproportionate collapse in case of a gas explosion. For this reason piped gas has been removed from all blocks and a temporary district heating boiler has been put outside 9 blocks to pump in hot water for central heating and the hot water supply to taps. However, no boiler was put outside Tangmere due to the council’s desire to demolish it and move people out before the gas shut-off. 

Tangmere and Northolt are even more vulnerable and reports show a gas cylinder explosion could cause a disproportionate collapse too.  Haringey Council seems to have believed it had  rectified these issues with past work but recent structural reports indicate that this was not the case.

See: https://www.homesforharingey.org/your-neighbourhood/safety-estates/broadwater-farm/faq-april-2018
The options were to demolish or strengthen Tangmere and Northolt to deal with this risk and the Council has chosen to demolish.

(No temporary boiler is required for Northolt as did not have a gas supply before the current situation. The problem here is continuing vulnerability to a gas cylinder explosion.)

Final Version of Minutes Cabinet Meeting 26/6/18
https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/documents/g8824/Public%20reports%20pack%2017th-Jul-2018%2018.30%20Cabinet.pdf?T=10

Page 2

‘That the key driver of the decision to decant Tangmere residents was the October deadline, was the fact that Cadent was due to switch off the gas supply.Jacob Secker contended that the October deadline was unrealistic  and that a temporary boiler  needed to be provided so that those Tangmere residents who could not be re -housed by then could get heating and  hot water  after gas was removed from inside the block.The similar circumstances of the Ledbury estate were referred to and Southwark‘s decision to provide temporary boilers.

There was concern that not all residents in Tangmere could be re-housed by October.’

Email to Haringey Council Cabinet  Sent 10/12/18 (extract)

‘I would also like to appeal to you on behalf of the households left in Tangmere.  There are at least 12-13 of these households: leaseholders, council tenants and one housing association tenant. 

As predicted now the gas has been switched off they are very cold. 

Electric heaters are not sufficient to heat the flats in Tangmere and I have heard they are tripping the electrics.  The decision not to install a temporary boiler was a cruel one. 

Officers keep insisting it is the residents ‘own fault’ for not moving but it is a landlord’s absolute responsibility to ensure homes are heated, not to blame the residents. 

In fact it has been very difficult to arrange for leaseholders to move due to difficulties with finding private accommodation for them at the rent levels the Council will fund and the Council’s ban on housing them temporarily in other council properties. 

Tenants who are remaining may be doing so because of problems in communication and difficult issues that have taken a long time to resolve.  It is unfair to put all these cases under the category of the ‘tenant’s own fault’ and they think it is all right to allow them to freeze as a consequence.  It was predicted that this would happen. 

Now the weather is getting colder and colder I would urge councillors to please do something for the households that you have left in this awful state.’