Flats being demolished in Solomons Passage SE15

[spider69]

Do not understand this complaint procedure.

The flats have been condemned as unfit. Who's fault no one seems to want to say from either organisation, Southwark or Wandle.

People now have no homes or life. Or it appears no known future.

Why not have a public enquiry to make sure it really does get buried and forgotten.

What needs to be responded to within fixed time limits. Acceptance of blame is what is required.

[buddug]

Trouble is, Spider, all these things have to follow a procedure in order to get anything out of the parties involved. My Freedom of Info request to Southwark has about 10 days to run. If they continue to fob me off, the independent Information Commissioner will likely force Southwark Council to say exactly what happened. They cannot claim building control officers visited the site and did inspections, but that there was no approval, or sign-off, as they are claiming at the moment. It's a nonsense. If it transpires Southwark Council signed off a development that was not fit for purpose, and a fire risk, if that is indeed the case, then they may be liable. We, sadly, have to wait. If Southwark Council turns out not to be liable, then other avenues will have to be pursued. It will all come out in the wash.

Meanwhile, thank goodness for the Freedom of Information Act, which, incidentally, Tony Blair later regretted introducing, saying he was an 'idiot' for having done so. Says it all about Blairites, really. Sadly, the leader of Southwark Council, Peter John, himself endorsed arch-Blairite Caroline Flint in her leadership challenge...

[pipsky2008]

buddug Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Trouble is, Spider, all these things have to

> follow a procedure in order to get anything out of

> the parties involved. My Freedom of Info request

> to Southwark has about 10 days to run. If they

> continue to fob me off, the independent

> Information Commissioner will likely force

> Southwark Council to say exactly what happened.

> They cannot claim building control officers

> visited the site and did inspections, but that

> there was no approval, or sign-off, as they are

> claiming at the moment. It's a nonsense. If it

> transpires Southwark Council signed off a

> development that was not fit for purpose, and a

> fire risk, if that is indeed the case, then they

> may be liable. We, sadly, have to wait. If

> Southwark Council turns out not to be liable, then

> other avenues will have to be pursued. It will all

> come out in the wash.

>

> Meanwhile, thank goodness for the Freedom of

> Information Act, which, incidentally, Tony Blair

> later regretted introducing, saying he was an

> 'idiot' for having done so. Says it all about

> Blairites, really. Sadly, the leader of Southwark

> Council, Peter John, himself endorsed

> arch-Blairite Caroline Flint in her leadership

> challenge...

Can I ask, the 10 days you say your F.O.I request has to run; is that to reply to your request with the information you have requested or to acknowledge your request from the initial date you made the request?

Which Southwark Council department did you make the request to?

[buddug]

Hi Pipsky. Having refused to answer my questions through normal channels, they now have about 10 days to give answers to my freedom of info request questions. Those questions are very reasonable and valid, and they will struggle to wriggle out of answering in the correct manner. The department at Southwark to which you have to send freedom of info requests is [email protected].

[geneie]

I am someone else who has been frequently checking this thread, horrified at the situation that the Solomons Passage tenants and leaseholders and shared owners are in, but feeling completely clueless as to how to help other than express my sympathy.

Someone asked about regulation of housing associations - that is the Homes &Communities Agency, "HCA is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Communities and Local Government" is the quote from their website.

[buddug]

Thanks geneie, for that. On their website, Homes & Communities Agency also say their responsibilities include "regulating social housing providers to make sure that they?re well managed and financially secure, so maintaining investor confidence in the affordable housing sector and protecting homes for tenants". Doesn't mention leaseholders, but I'll ring them tomorrow to alert them to the situation and see what they have to say.

[geneie]

I think you'll find that's mostly all they are interested in, financial viability and governance... :-(

[MarkT]

Buddug,

Well done for putting in the FOI request. From my experience the Council typically responds precisely on the 20th working day from receipt of an FOI request. I assume that?s what you refer to as 10 days left to run.

As I understand it, 20 days is the maximum allowed, by the FOI Act, for an answer to your request (the answer might be, of course, reasons why they can?t provide the info). If they can supply the information before 20 days, then they may legally do so.

In this case you have already been told by the Council?s press officer:

?Our building control officers visited the site and did the inspections that are within their remit.?

Therefore information has already been given to the press officer, so why not to you?

I think that the Council should immediately publicise the record of Inspections. I would accept that names are redacted until the culpability of individuals has been properly investigated. I think also that the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive should immediately apologise for allowing a press officer anywhere near this.

The press officer?s statement is of course highly questionable. For buildings, so new, to require refurbishment or demolition demonstrates major flaws in the ?building process? which should been identified during construction.

MarkT

[buddug]

Thanks, Mark T. You're right, 20 days is the max, but sometimes they respond before that. Here's hoping. The press officer relayed all the info she was given to me. She had nothing else. And consequently, it was a mess. I think what she was given by those on high was purely incompetent. Not her fault. When members of the press, like myself, need answers, we are automatically directed to the press office. So no one needs to apologise for letting the press officer near this. It is their job to answer questions from the press after gleaning the info from heads of department.

However, when I have needed answers as an individual leaseholder of Southwark, I have not gone to the press office, but have gone straight to heads of department. But this situation is different, as I will be writing about this for my newspaper group. I think it's time I got one of my more senior colleagues at the Financial Times to report on this situation as it stands, questions unanswered, while I await a response to my freedom of info request.

[Annaoneill]

Hi there everyone

I am a reporter on BBC Radio London and I'm very interested in what's happening at the flats. If anyone would like to get in touch with me with a view to me taking this on, then please drop me an email with your contact numbers to [email protected] as soon as you can.

Best regards

Anna

[pipsky2008]

buddug Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hi Pipsky. Having refused to answer my questions

> through normal channels, they now have about 10

> days to give answers to my freedom of info request

> questions. Those questions are very reasonable and

> valid, and they will struggle to wriggle out of

> answering in the correct manner. The department at

> Southwark to which you have to send freedom of

> info requests is [email protected].

Hi Buddug

Thanks for the link

I have previously made F.O.I requests via the environmental department of Southwark Council rather than the link you gave and received a response although on reflection, perhaps your link is the more formal and official route.

I hope though that my response was the same as you might expect from your request in terms of factual accuracy. Whether either of ours is legally binding and admissible in a court of law is another matter.

Can anyone clarify this?

[buddug]

Whatever we get via freedom of info request will be admissible in law. And as our requests are reasonable and valid, they will have to be answered.

[Renata Hamvas]

Hello all, I have had serious IT problems for the last few days so couldn't get into my computer account.

To clarify things, the first I heard of the problems was that council officers emailed a copy of the Wandle's March newsletter for residents to ward councillors at the end of March. Bits of information were filtering out during April and it's only when I contacted Wandle I got a fuller picture of what was happening. What I meant , and I think is clear in my previous email, that residents need to go to their 1 to 1 meetings what their needs are. This is the advice I have given to Solomon's Passage residents who have contacted me directly by phone/email. I have suggested that residents look for their own temporary accommodation and then present the possibilities to Wandle to increase the likelihood to be housed in a suitable location. Wandle may use an accommodation agency who won't know residents' transport routes to work nor which schools children currently attend or where they should live to secure a local school place for 2017.

In terms of those of you who are in shared ownership, if Wandle have no suitable local similar properties, the only suitable option may be to be in temporary accommodation for 2 years and then move back into your original flat once repais are completed. I would suggest that everyone compiles a list of costs of all improvements they have done to their properties since they moved in, and present this at their interview. If I am available, I am happy to attend the one to one interviews. Please contact me by email if you would like me to do this for you.

I have been in contact by email and phone with Southwark's Building Control. It seems that the quality control issues would have been under the remit of the Clerk of Works who was present on site during the build and would have either directly or in directly be appointed by Wandle. The failures in the build were not things that come under building control. This applies only to very specific things eg they are involved to check the calculations for the provision of load bearing steels are done correctly and sufficiently large/long ones are used. Please see the copied email below.

Similarly, I have been in touch with the Head of Planning. Wandle will definitely have to reapply for planning permission. Once a building is built, the permission to build lapses, so a new application is required if a building is demolished and rebuilt. I have attached the guidance for planning standards that wasn't around in 2008 when the original application was being considered.

I will try and assist to the best of my abilities any residents affected by this appalling situation. My contact details are at the bottom of this post.

Renata

Dear Councillor Hamvas

Thank you for your email

I have no prior knowledge of the current issues being raised and have had no contact with any residents or the Housing Association.

The actual defects / problems with the current building are unclear, but I understand serious enough to warrant demolition and rebuilding.

I will try to explain the way in which Building Control work within the current legislation.

An application was received on 11/12/2007 from Ashford Council acting as the Plan checking Authority under the Local Authority Building Control (LABC) Partnership scheme for the creation of ?Erection of eighty-five flats, four houses with associated basement parking & external works?. Under this partnership scheme Southwark Building Control carried out the inspections on site.

The application was originally known as 159-161 Peckham Rye

Work started on 5/2/2008 and a completion certificate was issued on 21/03/2012. The contractor was noted as Porchfern ltd.

The wording on any Completion Certificate states:

? That work complies with the Building Regulations as far as could be ascertained by periodic inspections? Building Control are not set up to act as clerks of work and cannot check every aspect of the construction process. We carry out scheduled inspections and in this case there were 48 inspections carried out.

Building Control approval should not be relied on to ensure full compliance with all Building issues. We can only control issues that fall under the Building Regulations. It must be emphasied that Building regulations are minimum standards, do not deal with quality and have the three main strands of:

? To secure the health, safety welfare and convenience of people in and around the buildings and people who may be affected by the buildings

? Prevent waste undue consumption, misuse or contamination of water.

? Conservation of fuel and power

It should be noted further that Building Regulations compliance is not the same as Consumer protection or trading standards compliance.

A local authority has a general duty to enforce the Building Regulations in its area and will seek to do so by informal means wherever possible.

We are not ?clerks of work? and can only check work at certain stages to ensure compliance and collect certification and testing documents from Authorised Bodies

I understand that the developers employed a Clerk of works to also oversee the construction phase.

The ultimate responsibility under the Building regulations lies with the person carrying out the work? this could be seen as the builder developer or owner . In scheme such as these a 10 year warranty is sometimes obtained and it would be expected that any Housing Association would carry such a warranty as part of they funding Requirements

I would not normally be involved in warranty issues and I have no knowledge of any warranty being/ not being issued for this project, and I cannot comment further until I have further information why this needs to be demolished

Regards

Head of Building Control

[buddug]

Why did the head of building control not sign his name at the end of his email?

[Penguin68]

Whilst I am sure that all the necessary and relevant hoops were jumped through (at least, I have no reasons to doubt it) and recognising that Buildings Control is about meeting (just) certain build standards in very specific areas, it is nevertheless somewhat disconcerting that a new build (of this nature) can be declared unsafe with 50% of the buildings needing to be torn down, and the remainder rebuilt over 2+ years, having passed all necessary building control standards. It does suggest that these standards do need review (poor quality build is one thing, terminally disastrous quality build is another). The somewhat checkered history of the ownership of these buildings (and the changes in those involved during the build) cannot have helped, but Wandle's approaches to due diligence do seem lackluster in the extreme. I wonder how many other developments (undertaken, one would have thought professionally) of this scale and nature fail quite so quickly?

[buddug]

I was outside my home just now - I'm having a week off - when a van with Wandle on the side came past, and slowed down right outside it with the driver looking through his window at me. He then drove off, but within seconds, he reversed. I turned round, and saw him in the reflection of my window stop outside for a couple of seconds, peer over, then he continued reversing down the road. Best not to comment on this as it is, without doubt, just a coincidence.

[geneie]

Good to see this covered in Southwark News today, hopefully it will get picked up by the nationals and TV soon.

[rendelharris]

I don't know enough about the situation to do it myself, but if someone on the inside contacts Private Eye ([email protected]) I'm sure the "Rotten Boroughs" column would eat this.

[LondonMix]

Renata-- aren't some of the problems with these buildings related to inadequate fire proofing and fire controls?

That certainly falls under building control's remit and its something they are supposed to verify via physical inspection. That has been my personal experience with Southwark building control.

I'm sorry but something doesn't smell right in that response from the officer involved if its true the fire proofing was not done to the then applicable code.

I look forward to your and Southwark's further clarification on that point.

[buddug]

LondonMix. You've hit the nail on the head. Fire safety - exit routes and alarms - do indeed come under Southwark Council building control's remit. So how the hell, after 40 visits from building control, and after the fatal Lakanal House fire in 2009, could Southwark building control have given approval to this development. Although the council is now denying it was building control's role to sign it off.

Equally, Owen Sheppard's excellent article in Southwark News reveals that although Wandle is claiming the Fire Brigade is now satisfied with the Solomons Passage fire safety provisions following an investigation, the Fire Brigade has denied that any investigation took place. The plot thickens.

[Renata Hamvas]

I have contacted building control again and they have informed me that fire stopping would have been checked as part of the site inspection regime to ensure that it is fine at that time point.

Renata

[Renata Hamvas]

I would like to add that my ward colleagues are also supporting residents in this. I know that Gavin Edwards was at meeting with residents last night.

Renata

[LondonMix]

Renata, what exactly does that mean? Are building control saying that it was fine when they inspected but has subsequently been changed / altered? Can you elaborate on what the fire control issues are that have currently been flagged?

[buddug]

Oh come on, Renata. Stop trying to protect Southwark Council building control. You say: "I have contacted building control again and they have informed me that fire stopping would have been checked as part of the site inspection regime to ensure that it is fine at that time point." Yet at that time when they were signing it off there were no fire escape routes/exits.

[Mugglesworth]

There is a Private Eye journalist who is taking a keen interest; she has already dug up some interesting things. I have PM'd her details to residents who have posted on this thread. If any other resident would like to contact her (names can be kept out of any article if wished) then please PM me and I will pass on her contact details.

rendelharris Wrote:

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> I don't know enough about the situation to do it

> myself, but if someone on the inside contacts

> Private Eye ([email protected]) I'm sure

> the "Rotten Boroughs" column would eat this.