Almost everywhere you look in the block of flats where Matt Gill lives, you can find a leak.
Water drips into half a dozen buckets in the lobby next to the lifts. Damp spreads across the ceiling. Grime or mould coats floors, walls and doors.
Opening up the wall panels reveals a warren of rusting pipes, surrounded by chunks of masonry and litter.
The concierge's office by the front door is shut, wrecked by flooding after a major leak almost a year ago.
“It’s the first time that I’ve lived here that I’m becoming really worried about safety,” he said. “Structurally, the pipes are completely eroded. I think something bad is going to happen.”
Having bought his flat on the fourth floor of 63-162 Fellows Court in Hackney almost two decades ago, Matt has seen the condition of the block gradually deteriorate.
“You start to get really demoralised and you start to just treat it as a normal way of life because it’s absolutely exhausting,” he said.
Matt is not the only person living in the Hackney Council-owned block with concerns.
This paper has visited Fellows Court twice since the summer, and spoken to almost a dozen tenants and leaseholders in that time.
All said they had suffered from persistent leaks in their flats, and all felt the problems were only getting worse.
Freedom of Information (FoI) requests made to the council reveal a concerning picture.
Five years ago, the council received 66 callouts about leaks in the block. This number has since quadrupled, with more than 260 leaks reported during the 12 months before April this year.
The cost to the local authority of repairing leaks has also soared, doubling over the same period to almost £30,000 a year.
‘It’s unbearable’
One tenant, David Coleman, has been lobbying the council for years to get a grip on the problem across the 1960s block.
“They just don’t listen to you,” he said. “If you complain and get frustrated, then they tell us we’ve been abusive.
“I had two leaks in my flat at the beginning of the year, and they’ve not come back and redecorated or anything.”
David, who has lived at Fellows Court for a decade, believes the problem stems from the antiquated boiler system, which he says breaks down whenever pipes burst, leaving people without any heating or hot water.
Hackney Council has admitted that the whole piping network in the block needs to be replaced – but has not given a timeline for this work to be carried out.
According to Steve Waddington, strategic director of housing services, the project is a “multi-million pound major piece of work, which will take time to plan and implement”.
In the meantime, Fellows Court relies on a temporary boiler that has been placed behind hoardings outside the block’s entrance.
“Heating and hot water are basic necessities,” David said. “If this was a hotel, there would be uproar. If it was a private landlord, the council would be on to them saying you have to provide these services.”
Burst pipes are not just a problem for those living in the block. Four weeks ago, firefighters were dispatched after a pipe carrying boiling water ruptured, triggering the fire alarm.
Three fire engines raced to the block as steam filled a corridor, prompting people to evacuate the building.
Christopher Daley, who lives on the first floor, said the latest development meant the problem with leaks was now an emergency. “It’s so dangerous,” he added. “It’s just unbearable.”
Among people living at Fellows Court, many see the leaks as an existential problem, fearing that the block is not structurally safe. Others report day-to-day inconveniences that make their lives harder.
Watch
Maria De Castro Baiva is one such tenant. After she reported a leak in her bathroom light, it was disconnected by the council but never repaired.
“Now, I have go for a bath without any light,” she said. “This is very dangerous for me especially as it is winter and I’m a pensioner. I could slip and fall.”
Tenants have asked Hackney to send the council’s political leaders to visit the block, but claim that to date only Meg Hillier MP has made an appearance.
In August, she confirmed that she had visited Fellows Court several times since January after being informed of “serious disrepair issues”.
“There are no quick fixes, but I know that Hackney Council is working to resolve the leaks,” she added.
“As well as fixing the immediate problems, there needs to be a longer term solution - particularly for the tower blocks.
"Years of reductions in funding for the council have hit hard - with no additional money for the regeneration needed at Fellows Court. Works of the sort will be costly for the council and leaseholders.”
Almost 2,000 overdue repairs
To compound these funding issues for the local authority, Fellows Court is not the only block in the borough that suffers from damp and leaks.
Earlier this year, a report by the Regulator of Social Housing found “serious failings” with safety in Hackney Council’s housing stock, which includes 137 tower blocks and more than 20,000 homes.
At the time, the council had more than 1,400 open damp and mould cases, including more than 500 cases that were overdue, and more than 600 identified as severe.
The council had also reported almost 1,800 overdue repairs dating back to October 2023.
In some instances, the Housing Ombudsman has been forced to intervene.
One such case is that of David Goldenberg, who lives in Pitcairn House, another Hackney Council-owned tower block about a half an hour's walk from Fellows Court.
He first moved to the block around 20 years ago, and claims to have suffered from leaks in his flat since 2010.
Earlier this year, the watchdog found it took almost three years – from October 2020 to September 2023 – for the latest spate of leaks in his flat to be resolved and repair work to be completed.
Hackney Council was ordered to pay him almost £7,000 in compensation after finding maladministration regarding its handling of his leak reports, complaints and an application to be moved while repair work was carried out.
‘The worse your block is, the more you pay’
Feyzi Ismail, a leaseholder who moved into the block in 2020, said the building feels “absolutely neglected”.
“People say it used to be so much better, but it’s just gone down and down and down after decades of underinvestment,” she added.
“There’s a problem with leaks but they’ve got to sort it, they’ve got to invest in it. We can’t go on like this.”
Leaks at the block have more than doubled since 2018, and cost the council more than £23,000 last year.
An average two-bedroom leaseholder now pays around £4,700 in charges, compared to just over £2,000 five years ago.
“We have this absurd situation where the worse the block that you live in is, the more you appear to pay,” Feyzi said.
“The extra money they’ve spent is astonishing because they don’t get to the root of the problem.”
Zoë Goodman, another leaseholder at the block, said there were “shocking” cases of leaks in individual flats.
One tenant had to move her fridge into the communal corridor and her furniture onto her balcony for two months after leaks destroyed her kitchen and living room. Damp continues to appear in her kitchen six months on.
“It feels like total abandonment of the building by the council,” Zoë said. “People feel like they’re living in a slum.”
“It’s not only degrading and upsetting for people, as well as extremely stressful and anxiety-inducing, but it’s also a major health and safety risk.”
Hackney Council’s housing ‘crisis’
Activists are now sounding the alarm. Community union ACORN Hackney says the experiences of neighbours at Pitcairn House and Fellows Court are “atrocious and unacceptable”.
“The council housing stock is absolutely inadequate,” said union spokesman Hugo Clancy.
“For far too many families, they are living in unsafe conditions. In our view that should be considered a crisis.”
He added that ACORN had seen similar issues with disrepair at council housing blocks across the borough, and that people “are right to be angry”.
“After 14 years of austerity it’s definitely true that councils need more funding and support from central government,” he said.
“But there are also issues of how they spend their money and on a more fundamental level, it shouldn’t be too much to ask for councils to treat people like human beings, to listen to them and to stick to what they say.”
Hackney Council has said that it “completely rejects” any suggestion that its tower blocks are crumbling and structurally unsafe.
A spokesperson added that the authority believes that “there is no evidence to support this claim”.
“We do, however, acknowledge that there are repairs needed,” they said. “That said, tackling these issues is not always a quick fix.”
The authority also claimed that it is “untrue” to suggest that it is not dealing with leaks at Fellows Court.
However, it has acknowledged that the block is experiencing a “high number of leaks from the heating system pipework”, which is why the entire network will be replaced.
A spokesperson said that in the meantime, the council is making “every effort to carry out preventative works where possible”.
“We are fully aware how frustrating ongoing problems can be for residents, and we apologise to anyone who is affected,” they added.
“We have a clear plan of action to tackle the issues impacting on the quality of life of those living in both blocks - including carrying out full internal and external surveys of tenants' homes as part of a borough-wide stock condition survey to assess the overall condition of our homes.”
Anyone experiencing repairs issues has been urged to contact the council on 020 8356 3691.
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