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Exposed: State of our estates
A WEBSITE which shamed the council into repairing one
run-down Holloway estate has now turned its cameras on
another.
The Coombe House Initiative hit the web in
April with pictures and virtual tours showing desperate living
conditions on the Lower Hilldrop estate.
Within weeks
steam cleaners were sent in, lifts were repaired and new
lighting was put in along the terrifying pitch-black
corridors.
Now a new page is being launched to try and
force similar improvements on the notoriously decrepit Market
estate. Coombe House resident, Thomas Cooper, who set up the
website, said: "I started this to expose to the world the
disgusting living conditions in Islington Council housing. I
focussed on Coombe House because for 14 years I've been
fighting for work to be done here. But I always intended the
focus to be wider and along the way people told me about
similarly awful conditions on the Market, the Andover and the
Packington. There's no shortage of squalor in
Islington."
The Market estate page will be launched on
September 8 - the fourth anniversary of the death of
12-year-old Christopher Pullen, who was crushed by a broken
door. Last month tenants voted to have the estate demolished
and rebuilt. But the work won't be complete until 2010 at the
earliest, and Mr Cooper was appalled by what he saw when he
visited recently.
"There's filth, grime and offensive
graffiti everywhere," he said. "And so many hazards. There's a
lightning conductor just dangling in the wind and there are
smashed windows on the fourth floor of the Southdown block
where a six or seven year old child could easily pull
themselves up and fall to certain death.
"I know
there's hope for the future now with the redevelopment but
there's no justification for making people live in these
disgusting conditions until then."
Mr Cooper hopes
putting Market estate on the website will bring the same
benefits it has to residents of Coombe House. But he also
warns that it doesn't solve all the problems.
"Things
have got a whole lot better in Coombe House," he said.
"Launching the website disgraced Homes for Islington, which
runs Islington's housing, into repairs. It also raised
awareness of housing rights among tenants and showed they can
successfully voice their concerns.
"But we are still
waiting for new security doors and window locks from Homes for
Islington and water is still dropping form the balcony
ceilings. They need to fulfil their promises or all the work
will have been in vain."
A spokesman for Homes for
Islington, which now runs council housing in the borough,
said:"
Anyone who feels their estate or community has
been abandoned or neglected by the council should log on to
www.tchi.org.uk
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