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| UPDATED
EVERY FRIDAY
Last Update:
Friday 20th
May, 2005 |
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| All
content © New Journal Enterprises, 2005. |
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| Rat backs case for flats repairs |
FOR tenants of Camden’s
most-run-down tower block, it was the final indignity –
a rat sitting in on their meeting with the council.
The intruder appeared at an open door at Blashford, a 19-storey
block in Adelaide Road, Swiss Cottage, and looked on as a
Town Hall official attempted to explain to 35 tenants why
essential repairs – delayed for six years – still
do not have the go-ahead.
The rat sparked a walk-out by eight fed-up tenants, before
Tory ward councillor Jonny Bucknell trapped the intruder behind
a brick.
Other tenants had left earlier in anger at the inability of
the council and the government to improve their living conditions.
The block is part of the Chalcot estate, five tower blocks
which in the last year have suffered infestations of rats
and cockroaches, fires, interrupted water supplies, no heating,
broken lifts, windows which do not shut, pirate radio stations
and vandalism.
A repeatedly delayed £117 million Private Finance Initiative
scheme to renovate the estate was finally rejected by the
Treasury in February.
Camden Council is now seeking approval for a reduced £55-65
million scheme, which would allow kitchens, bathrooms and
windows to be replaced and the blocks cladded against the
elements, but would not include the renewal of lifts or more
ambitious plans to add new flats.
Deputy tenants’ leader Casey Opang said: “It is
a matter of life and death for us here. People are dying while
we wait for something to be done.”
Camden official Rachel Carvalho, whose late attendance kept
35 already irate tenants waiting half an hour, said: “We
have to deliver a plan which fits within the affordability
envelope, otherwise we will not get the go-ahead from the
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Treasury.”
She said the new plan would be submitted by the end of this
month, with a decision expected by June and work starting
in November.
Tenants, who have seen more than half a dozen deadlines come
and go without action, say they are not holding their breath. |
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