Bill Harper left waiting for a year

THIRTEEN flats are lying empty on a council estate where tenants have faced years of delays and confusion – on top of a botched new-build project.

Residents at Hathersage Court in Newington Green say the Town Hall is to blame for mismanagement of a major works scheme that has left many in limbo.

Many are waiting to move so their homes can be updated but have no idea when this will happen due, they say, to council failures.

One woman was moved out of her home for three months in September 2022, so fire safety improvements could be made at her flat. But delays mean that more than half a year later she was still waiting to return.

Angela, who did not want to give her surname, said: “It was really annoying waiting every day thinking are you going to get the go-ahead. They didn’t start work on my flat for two months.”

Bill Harper was one of the first to be offered a temporary move out of Hathersage. But he too was waiting for months before he left his home. Mr Harper described the management of the voids process as “absolutely atrocious”.

He said: “I moved back in June but I was in the other one for eight or nine months. It was meant to be for two or three months they said. I was the first one to put my hand up and say ‘Yeah, I don’t mind moving, if the council needs to do that [works], and I get a new kitchen, bathroom, toilet, go on then’. I was waiting for them to move me for about a year. It was horrible.”

Catherine Ostenberg, the former chair of Hathersage Court’s tenants’ and residents’ association, slammed the programme as “totally disorganised”, saying it had allowed “a private contractor to waste thousands while the housing list grows”.

The works, which residents say they were told by senior officers would be finished in 2022, have now racked up a cost of more that £4.7million, according to a Freedom of Information request by the Tribune.

Ms Ostenberg said: “The way the void flats have been mismanaged is just another example of the lack of leadership and broken promises from the council.”

She added: “We’ve been raising these issues with consecutive so-called executive members and the chief executive for years.”

There have continually been around a dozen void flats at Hathersage Court since 2018 while more than 16,000 people are currently on the social housing list in Islington.

Mildway ward councillor Jenny Kay said: “Every week we meet families in desperate situations and often they have to be placed in extremely expensive and unsatis­factory temporary or private rented accommodation outside the borough.

“For there to be none of the promised new builds and a dozen large flats just empty is tragic.”

A spokesperson for Islington Council said: “The improvement works at Hathersage Court are being delivered in phases. During the initial phase we used vacant units in the block to temporarily relocate people to carry out crucial fire-stopping works in their homes.

“The works are currently on hold as we are waiting on a response to our application to the Building Safety Regulator to commence the works. We have kept the units vacant to accommodate people having works carried out in the next phase of the programme. Once all the works are completed, we will reallocate these homes to people on our housing register.”