Kensington and Chelsea Council is better at keeping up appearances and sanitising poverty and squalor than it is at addressing it.
Emma Dent Coad MP, Fitness for Human Habitation Bill, 19 January 2018
This photo depicts a bathroom in a three-year-old flat, where the floor has collapsed. This same flat in a new development has suffered leaks through the ceiling, through the walls, around the windows, the loo flooded, the kitchen tap broke – then an unattended leak from under the bath caused the floor to collapse.
While this is an extreme case, it is only uncommon because the flat is newly built. All over Kensington rented homes – social or private – are kept in appalling conditions to save the landlord money.
This has actually got worse over the years. For this reason in January 2019 I launched a report ‘Drop the MP’ on poor housing management in the social sector. It is called ‘Drop the MP’ because that is what one tenant, whose requests for repair had been ignored, was told when I became involved. I found this truly shocking. Another tenant pleaded with me for help saying, ‘We live in disrepair’.
I will do everything I can to ensure that people live in safe warm homes which are well maintained. Karen Buck MP’s ‘Fitness for Human Habitation Bill’ became law in April 2019 and allows tenants to sue landlords for disrepair.
