Lynne Featherstone MP today met with the Managing Director of Circle 33, to relay the concerns of residents living in the blocks managed by the organisation in New River Village.
The Liberal Democrat MP demanded the meeting following complaints from residents about poor living conditions. Residents in the block are suffering with extreme damp, while the communal areas such as the corridors are in a state of disrepair.
According to residents, sewage regularly floods the lift and the bin store is left in a state – attracting vermin.
After the meeting, the MP for Hornsey and Wood Green accompanied the Managing Director on a site visit, so he could see the problems and discuss them with residents.
On behalf of Circle 33, he said that a specialist site investigation had begun, with a report expected within five weeks. He stated that Circle 33 would take the necessary action following this report.
Local campaigner Dawn Barnes said:
“I have been out collecting petition signatures from residents who are fed up with these poor living conditions.
“It’s great that Lynne Featherstone presented the petition to Circle 33 today, and that they made commitments to sorting out the problems. We’ll keep on pushing them until the situation improves, and will be keeping residents updated every step of the way.”
Lynne Featherstone commented:
“It is just shocking that the situation has gone on so long without Circle 33 taking action. Only after our letters, videos and petitioning have they started taking this seriously.
“We now await the results of the site investigation and will take it from there. We will not rest until these residents get decent living conditions – via improvements to the building, or permanent moves to other suitable properties.”
You can see the video here.
Lynne Featherstone 
Now perhaps you see at first hand the poor state of ‘affordable’ social housing, since Thatcher’s divisive government introduced the ‘Right to Buy’. At Tottenham College, our Housing Finance and Economics Lecturer pointed out its fundamental flaws. I had the doubtful pleasure of managing post RTB leasehold stock in Hillingdon, and knew then what an unsatisfactory policy it was, because the Act was badly worded, with the result that sales distorted and destabilised the housing market.
Since then Council housing developments have been non existent, and standards of some housing association schemes have been at best ‘variable’. You are seeing what should be good affordable social housing that has been put up on the cheap, and any defect is quickly shown up. Just what happened in the 60s. I have not heard anything from the Lib-Dem conference this week which promises adequate funding to sort out, repair and build decent affordable social housing. Well Lynn …. please enlighten me, R.
Sorry Lynne, error while posting, the ‘e’ got zapped out. Can your team correct this please, then you can delete this. Cheers R
Sadly, this is just an example of the really shocking ‘service’ being provided by Circle 33. The only reason the senior manager attended is because of the press and MP attention. The disgraceful service to other customers goes under the radar, like my 86 yr old Dad, suffering with terminal cancer, who was left without heating and hot water for 3 months over Xmas. Impossible to get through to their call centre, waits to get through are 45 mins to an hour, appointments made, no one turns up repeatedly etc. I understand they have now taken down their FaceBook page since the extent of people’s disgust was becoming too obvious. Does no one regulate this sector? How bad does a housing association’s performance need to be before it goes into special measures? Since FaceBook is down, I hope others will voice their experiences and that Lynne will extend her campaign. Someone needs to speak up for vulnerable tenants.