• READING Cllr Meric Apak try to explain away Labour’s failures to house residents properly won’t wash with most people living on Camden’s council estates.

Camden has the third-most council flats that are empty for longer than six months of any council in England.

Every time district management committee and tenants’ and residents’ association representatives raise this, he claims that this is because of HS2. But that number excludes people decanted because of HS2 works.

If residents need housing, Camden’s social housing placement system needs replacement. But even if you have a council home, that isn’t the end of your problems.

Camden has the sixth-most sub-standard council homes in the country; and it would cost more than anywhere else in England to bring them back up to the Decent Homes Standard all council homes should meet.

While visiting the 1972 Grade II-listed Dunboyne Road estate in Gospel Oak, I was shocked to discover residents have had serious heating problems for more than eight years.

I met elderly residents having to wear outdoor coats to try to keep warm in winter. I met another elderly resident, with a hip replacement, whose kitchen ceiling collapsed in 2019 and is still waiting for it to be fixed.

The Local Government Ombudsman found Camden has the second-worst damp and mould problems of any council in England.

I am an elected representative of one of Camden’s largest council estates on Chalcots, and see first-hand the neglect with which residents are treated.

After scandalous treatment is exposed, Labour needs to do so much better than simply press-releasing that it wants government to “radically overhaul the housing market”.

It can’t keep passing the buck when it has so many invaluable council homes lying empty or in deleterious disrepair.

NIGEL RUMBLE
Conservative Candidate for Gospel Oak ward