Temporary fences have been installed at Crest Buildings

RESIDENTS at the canalside estate where a little girl drowned earlier this year have been told they will have to wait at least six months to have permanent fences installed at the spot where she fell in.

The timetable was revealed at a meeting between people living in the Crest Buildings by the City Road Basin and officials from the Peabody housing association.

Malika Hibu, five, drowned in a stretch of the Regent’s Canal that had no fence and a coroner’s inquest heard last month that warnings about safety had not been acted on.

Coroner Mary Hassell said: “They [Peabody] didn’t risk assess a very potentially dangerous situation. They didn’t act on complaints that were made, they didn’t try to make the barrier safer and then even when they noticed they sent one email and didn’t take any other steps till a week before Malika’s death in which case it was too late.

Malika Hibu

“What concerns me is it’s a culture, a way of thinking, and that is what I want to bring to Peabody’s attention.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, Peabody, which manages the estate near Angel, was told that residents had ongoing concerns about safety.

Temporary fencing is currently in place.

Martyn Perks, a resident who chaired the meeting, told Peabody’s deputy chief executive Elly Hoult, its managing director Tracy Packer, and senior landscape construction manager Elizabeth Connelly: “The public inquest has revealed a lot about your failings and how you’ve misled us as residents for years. You’ve taken zero responsibility for our safety. Repeatedly our concerns as residents have been ignored.”

Crest Buildings residents at Wednesday’s meeting

Residents said they had been asking Peabody to erect a fence for years before Malika’s death. “If we had that fence put up when we asked, that little girl wouldn’t be dead,” said one resident.

Ms Packer told the meeting: “I would love to go back and change the past, but we cannot do that. At Peabody, we are all really upset and saddened by what happened.

“We accept your anger, we all want the same things, there’s no resistance.”

Peabody erected the temporary fences by the canal, but residents say gaps at the bottom and constant breakages mean they are not fit for purpose.

“It’s not good enough, kids can slip under it, it’s broken, we have to email and ask multiple times to get anything done,” said Sophie Chapple, who has been living on the estate for five years.

On the day of the meeting, Peabody installed blocks to cover the gaps.

Ms Connelly said that getting planning permission from the council alongside designing the fence and talking to contractors meant that it was not reasonable to expect a permanent fence to be in place before April 2025 – although a letter sent to residents last month had detailed plans to have the fence constructed by February.

Peabody chiefs were reluctant to commit to an exact timeline for the fences, but Ms Connelly said: “We can commit to striving [towards a date]. I can’t sit here and set a date.”

At the same meeting residents raised further concerns surrounding ongoing anti-social behaviour on the estate, long waits for repairs, and “threatening” communication from Peabody.

“I saw someone the other day shooting Class-A drugs into his veins in front of the children in the garden in broad daylight,” said Ms Chapple.

The neighbours are requesting a gate to stop their estate being publicly accessible.

Peabody has said it will commit to erecting a gate, but could not say when due to the need for planning permission.