• CAMDEN Council’s cabinet members’ approach to dealing with the housing crisis in the borough is worrying to say the least. Years of having these cabinet members at the helm has left our homes in a truly sorry state.

Here on the Churchill/ Spencer estate, currently earmarked for the new homes on small sites scheme where the most we can all hope for is that a mere 65 per cent of the new homes go to social housing, flats are damp and rampant with black mould.

Exposed asbestos is also a huge issue as new tenants are not notified of which surfaces are unsafe for them to disturb.

At times leaks cannot be investigated as they generate from behind asbestos panels, in which case the tenant just has to wait and hope that the leak will rectify itself soon.

The council do not carry out any general maintenance at all. Our walkway surfaces are cracked and blown, allowing water to penetrate through to the properties below.

They require urgent replacement, yet the repairs team simply send the mould wash team out as one repairs officer tells me “it is cheaper” to do so. This is just one of the long list of outstanding issues.

Cabinet members have suggested that if we play ball with their plans to build yet more homes on our very small site, there “may be a small budget to allow for estate improvements in the short term.” This is outrageous!

No, my guess is that we are going down the same route as Agar Grove estate and the due-to-be-demolished Kentish Town estate.

Our estate will soon reach a point of no return our location is prime and someone will make a very pretty penny when the estate is declared “obsolete.”

Our estate is not unusual. I hear from others in Camden, who are also living in appalling conditions; where reactive maintenance is the only maintenance to go forward following some disaster or other; where contracts for fire and safety works, for example, are commissioned on the principle of 40 per cent quality and 60 per cent price, allowing the winning tender to reach well below the required 40 per cent for quality.

These figures are truly disappointing. There is no joy to be had living in these dilapidated hovels that are a blight on our community.

It may, of course, be that our estates were poorly built in the first instance, with short life spans. Our estate is 66 years old. I doubt that this is the case, and it seems obvious to anyone living here that refusal to maintain the current housing stock is the only factor.

Tenants should be able to live in safe, well-maintained, homes and if basic maintenance was carried out these estates would remain standing for many years to come.

Cllr Anna Wright says there are no plans to demolish our estate as yet and, as Kentish Town estate is next on the list, I believe her for now. But I am sure that our days here are numbered.

KAY REYNOLDS, NW5