Thomas Turrell AM, Conservative London Assembly Member for the Bexley & Bromley, has written to the Deputy Mayor for Housing to demand answers to the shambolic events unfolding at County House in Beckenham, which was a London Living Rent scheme property.
Reports of poor conditions, fire and flooding, delayed - if not postponed - repairs, and now mass section 21 (“No Fault”) evictions for tenants have caused serious alarm in recent days. Now, Thomas Turrell AM has written to the Deputy Mayor for Housing Tom Copley to shed light on the incident after LBC first broke the news.
In his letter, Thomas Turrell AM sets out four key requests for clarification: firstly, regarding what support is being made available to tenants; secondly, how often did City Hall officials meet with Hyde, the management organisation, to ensure quality housing was being provided; thirdly, whether this scandal will trigger a reappraisal of the Mayoralty’s relationship with Hyde; and finally what ability tenants in London Living Rent programmes have to escalate and pursue complaints about the quality of housing available to them.
In a statement, Thomas Turrell AM said:
“The allegations levelled against Hyde and the Mayoralty about the disgraceful series of events coming out of County House are deeply concerning. Residents entered into a scheme designed to make their lives easier: to provide them the means to save for their own home, to provide them the security of comfort that a name like The Mayor of London should have given, and to provide them respite from the type of slumlord that has so easily profited off the extreme housing crisis in London.
What has been exposed at County House is that residents have been left without power, water, and even housing in a property is a mockery of the Mayor’s commitment to provide affordable stable housing with this programme. Additionally, there appears to be no checks and balances from the Mayor and his team to ensure that tenants were getting the high quality homes that were promised by this programme, a point which I am seeking urgent clarification on. We hear so much from Sadiq Khan about the respite that his Government will give renters from “unfair” section 21 evictions - are section 21 notices still unfair now that they are being served en masse to his tenants? I am writing to the Deputy Mayor for Housing Tom Copley to demand answers to this shambolic state of affairs and I hope to be able to share the answers with the public in due course.”
County House was originally opened in Beckenham by Sadiq Khan in 2017 as the flagship scheme of his London Living Rent programme, which aims to provide affordable rents to Londoners to enable them to save to mortgage the property in the long run and own their own home. The scheme operates by setting rent at one-third of average local wages, beneath market rate, to enable Londoners to pay the difference into a deposit.
