Kensington and Chelsea Council is renegotiating its contract with the company carrying out works on the Silchester Estate
Philip Southerill, 34, (left) and Carlos Aguiar, 57, say their homes on the Silchester Estate have turned into a construction site(Image: Adrian Zorzut/Local Democracy Reporting Service)
Residents on a West London estate say refurbishment works have turned into a “joke” as homes become a “construction site” for months at a time and lifts don’t work.
Silchester Estate residents claim each flat was supposed to take 25 days to complete but the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) heard from some who have been waiting up to a year.
The £40million refurb of all four 20-storey towers on the estate in North Kensington was expected to begin in October 2023 and take two years to complete, according to the website for Equans – the contractor carrying out the works. Yet when the LDRS visited last month, it found scaffolding around only two of the four buildings.
Markland House on the Silchester Estate(Image: Adrian Zorzut/Local Democracy Reporting Service)
There are 320 properties in total being refurbished. The works include additional smoke and heat alarms, new kitchens, bathrooms, windows, ventilation systems, balcony fittings and surfaces. It also includes replacing lifts, redecorating communal areas and “compartmentation works” in some flats.
A YouTube video posted by Kensington and Chelsea Council in July 2024 invited viewers to “come on a tour with Cllr Sof McVeigh at Silchester Estate in North Kensington to see how we’re transforming homes for residents”. A comment posted by a resident about seven months later, all in capital letters, asked: “WHEN ARE OUR WINDOWS BEING PUT IN?”
One leaseholder on the estate, which is mostly home to council tenants, says homeowners like him are facing a £130,000 bill for the works. He told the LDRS: “The works taking place are s***. My flat has mould in it, which appeared after the works began. It’s not an environment I want to raise my kids in.”
The accountant said his wife and twins flew to Germany to stay with family and he was living with his parents just to escape the flat during half-term. He said the flat is so damp his kids’ clothes don’t dry and he has had to send them to school in plain clothes twice in the past month. He said without heating, the temperature drops to 15 degrees.
He said this is because the ventilation and radiators, which were removed in August, still haven’t been replaced. His windows still need replacing. “Nobody seems to care,” he said.
At Markland House, residents told the LDRS one of the two lifts in the block hasn’t worked since December 2024. They said despite assurances it would be operational by March 2025, they will now have to wait until the end of this year.
They said the only working lift services every second level, which means residents – some disabled and elderly – have to scale a flight of stairs to get to their flat. According to residents, works began more than two years ago. One resident, who didn’t want to be named, claims they started shortly after she reported a lump of falling concrete narrowly missing her as she left the block.
Broken Homes: What MyLondon is calling for
Through our Broken Homes campaign, MyLondon is calling for:
1. Specifically with temporary accommodation placements, a universal distance cap across councils in England to end the postcode lottery. Sending people to the other side of the country on a temporary basis is unfair, when at any moment the phone can ring to tell them to come back. Some councils have a cap, for instance 90 minutes’ travel time. Most don’t have that, so we say: level the playing field.
2. Linked to point 1, we want a ban on councils being allowed to discharge their statutory duty to someone who refuses an offer of housing, whether temporary or permanent, that is an unreasonable distance away. If offering someone a home a long way away speeds up the process of them being housed, it needs to be the resident’s choice.
Using the threat of being on the street to get people to agree to moving over 200 miles away, having to quit their job and detach themselves from their support network, is a national scandal in itself.
3. Specific legislation that requires landlords to repair broken lifts within 24 or 48 hours. It’s a significant public health and safety issue that people with limited mobility are either being trapped inside their homes for weeks at a time, or they are walking up more than 20 flights of stairs when it’s not safe for them to do so.
If sourcing parts is a common issue, develop a national strategy for ensuring the UK has those parts available.
4. A better system of cooperation between councils in England for sourcing and managing temporary housing. Councils are taking part in a real life game of Monopoly, competing on the open market against each other to buy up cheap homes, often in each other’s back yards. This only moves the problem around and disadvantages councils in a worse financial situation, and sparks bidding wars that push up property prices, fuelling the crisis.
At Dixon House, the lift has been out of service since October. Kensington and Chelsea Council said it is investing over £40m to modernise the 1970s estate, which they said has potentially dangerous crumbling concrete.
The council has a borough-wide lift replacement programme and said it was “beyond frustrating” there are further delays to those on the Silchester Estate. They said the lifts on the estate are old and need replacing and are changing lifts in two blocks, including Markland House.
According to the council, initial delays at Markland House were due to finding asbestos, which had to be removed before work could begin. They also experienced some issues with water ingress to the lifts this summer, which caused a further delay.
The authority said it has a plan when lifts break down which includes setting up water stations on each floor during hot weather, deploying a community support provider to help vulnerable residents and providing them with temporary hotel accommodation. They also issues update letters by hand to all residents and provide text updates and posters.
Vulnerable residents on the odd floors which are not served by the lift in service can have a family member or carer trained to the use the stair climbers.
Dixon House
Carla Pina lives in her two-bed flat with her two young children. She said earlier this year builders installed new ventilation and a waste pipe in a wet room, which she needs because of mobility issues, and placed a transparent sticker over the newly-plastered wall because cracks began to emerge.
She said the same thing took place in the kitchen except the sticker in her wet room is beginning to peel. There’s also a more concerning impact of the works she claims happens anytime her neighbours flush water down the pipes.
“There’s a sound that comes from behind the wall in the wet room. My son says it sounds like spiders but I think it sounds like someone throwing up in their sleep. In the kitchen, it sometimes sounds like an empty kettle boiling,” she told the LDRS.
Dixon House is one of two towers where work has begun(Image: Adrian Zorzut/Local Democracy Reporting Service)
She is still waiting on her windows to be replaced. She said: “I don’t want to be here. The scaffolding is up and I can’t relax on my balcony and because there’s noise, every time I want to relax I have to go down stairs. It’s a faff.”
Amina Graine, 80, has had no heating for a month. Rugged up in an armchair in her cold bedroom, Amina points to the small electric heater at her feet she said was provided by the council.
She had just returned from hospital and was lifted up to her third-floor flat by ambulance drivers because the lift was out of service. She told the LDRS: “It’s bad. The noise, I can’t sleep.”
Works were meant to finish in October 2025, according to Equans website(Image: Adrian Zorzut/Local Democracy Reporting Service)
The LDRS heard from countless residents about delays and being left without heating for weeks at a time. One woman claims she’s still waiting on her heating to be replaced after contractors tore them out in August to install new windows.
She says she was told the job would take four days to complete but it took two weeks for new windows to be installed.
According to the council, some issues with works in flats were discovered when construction began, which meant the programme was changed to include mitigating fire safety works and interim safeguards were installed. Radiators had to be removed to fit the new windows.
The radiators couldn’t be reinstalled in the same place so the contactors work with residents to find the most suitable place in their home. There was some delay in Markland House earlier this year when the site was shut down for a short period while a legal issue with a resident was attended to.
According to the council, it will offer temporary heaters to households where radiators are out of commission.
Markland House
Another resident, who did want to be named, said she has been waiting since June for her kitchen in Markland House to be finished.
She explained she can’t close her kitchen cupboard because builders installed a plaster board that was too big. She also said half her flat has no heating because the radiators were removed and never replaced. She claims the delays are down to Kensington and Chelsea Council changing its mind on layout designs.
Nasri, 44, said her husband missed out on a family vacation to Kenya so he could monitor works going on in their two-bed apartment. She said the family paid £900 for his ticket and couldn’t get it refunded.
One resident said she can’t shut her kitchen cupboard because plasterboard that was put in is too big(Image: Adrian Zorzut/Local Democracy Reporting Service)
She said building began in June and should have taken 25 days but by late July, when the family prepared for their trip, builders were still in their flat. When the family returned six weeks later, the works still weren’t complete.
She said the family of five spent the last few months living in their only two bedrooms while work takes place in the living room. She said: “They aren’t straight with you. They say ‘we’re coming’ and then they aren’t coming. When someone comes, they don’t know what they’re doing. Some come and do a half job.
“We have 10 different people coming and doing work and if you don’t follow up, you don’t know what they’re doing. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. It’s horrible and it’s inhumane.”
The LDRS also spoke to residents in Frinstead House who said works to their building had been delayed and they were unsure when they would begin. According to the council, officers have used phone calls, door knocking, newsletters and direct mail to inform residents of any delays or shifts to timelines. There was also a resident workshop, which included the residents association.
Residents are also encouraged to communicate via the council and Equans’ resident liaison officers (RLOs). The council said they were committed to improving work in residents’ homes with the contractor participating in the same customer service training council staff take.
According to the council, all construction projects experience a period of snagging where any quality issues are picked up before the contractor can complete the job.
‘It’s beyond a joke’
Residents living beneath the towers are also waiting for works to be done to their homes. Those living in Darfield Way say their homes are covered in asbestos.
One resident, who didn’t want to be named, said her flat was flooded five years ago and she is still waiting on new carpets and a bathroom. She has had to live with her daughter because her flat has no running hot water.
“It’s beyond a joke. And Kensington and Chelsea Council. Wow, that’s all I’m going to say,” she told the LDRS, adding: “I want my home. I want my own home. I want to enjoy my garden.”
A lift in Markland House hasn’t worked since December 2024(Image: Adrian Zorzut/Local Democracy Reporting Service)
Carlos Aguiar, 57, has lived in his ground floor Darfield Way home for 10 years. He says he complained to the council about leaking radiators and a loose back door and a crack in his wall but never heard back. He said he had to get a solicitor involved to get his bathroom and kitchen replaced.
Philip Southerill, 34, said he’s been asking the council to replace the pavements stones after falling over and bruising his knee. He said: “Every time we get a new housing officer, we contact them and they’re either on leave or in a meeting.”
New timeline for refurbishment
It comes as Kensington and Chelsea Council said it is renegotiating its contracts with Equans to extend the timeframe for works on the Silchester Estate. The council was asked to confirm the new timeline but did not provide a response.
According to the authority, this is to accommodate changes to the works, update terms and performance requirement. It is working with Equans to agree the details.
Cllr Sof McVeigh, Lead Member for Housing, said: “We’re sorry to residents who have been finding the works on the Silchester Estate difficult. We are investing over £40million to create safer, more modern, and energy-efficient homes throughout the estate. It is an old 1970s estate with potentially dangerous crumbling concrete, so we had to act.
“After the Grenfell tragedy we promised to listen to residents and the message that we received loud and clear was that they did not want this estate to be knocked down and regenerated, so we are committed to delivering the large scale work required.
Uneven pavement along Darfield Way (Image: Adrian Zorzut/Local Democracy Reporting Service)
“Projects of this scale often present unexpected challenges and delays, and we are sorry for these and the inconvenience caused. We are moving as quickly as we can and keeping residents up to date with regular newsletters and weekly surgery sessions with the project team.
“We hold ourselves and our contractors to high standards of care, support and information for our residents. We are always reviewing how we’re performing and welcome feedback from residents on their experience so we can keep improving. Following residents’ feedback we have brought in new council staff permanently based on site alongside the contractor for additional project oversight and to improve communication with residents.
“It is beyond frustrating and disappointing that there are further delays to the lift replacement. But we have a tried and tested plan if a lift fails, with support for vulnerable residents, welfare checks, hand-delivered letters and emergency accommodation where necessary.”
Equans has been approached for comment.
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