“I haven’t been able to sleep because it’s so cold,” one resident told EC1 Echo.
By EC1 Echo
The housing blocks of EC1 are enduring a cold winter, in part due to Islington Council’s decision to restrict heating in some of its blocks. Some 4,700 of Islington’s 36,000 council homes have communal heating systems.
This includes reducing the hours when the centralised heating systems are in action and starting the season’s heating schedule a month later than usual – and at the Finsbury and King’s Square estates, the Brunswick Close Estate, the Redbrick estate and Stafford Cripps estate, residents’ voices are being raised in protest.
At the Brunswick Close Estate’s ‘warm hub’ in the estate’s community centre, residents told the EC1 Echo that they found the situation intolerable. Kathleen Durden said: “I haven’t been able to sleep because it’s so cold.”
In an endeavour to become warm at noon, Ms Durden, 79, filled a hot water bottle and scalded her hand, which she attributes to the freezing conditions in her flat. “The council tells you to use your own heating. But who’s going to pay the costs of an expensive fan heater?”
Her neighbour Pauline Fitzpatrick, 61, said that the heating hours had gone down from 18 a day to 13. “The less it’s on, the longer it then takes for it to heat up – almost an hour.” They residents also said that the thermostat controls inside the flats were inadequate and made little difference.
Sarah Nash of the Finsbury Estate TRA said it was a similar situation in their blocks, adding that the council had stonewalled residents’ complaints and left complaints unanswered.
“There’s completely no consultation,” said Ms Nash, who added that the insulation of the blocks was poor, worsening the heat loss. She said that the TRA was consulting lawyers with a view to taking a case against Islington Council.
As well as the heating issues, residents have been aggrieved that in a consultation exercise immediately prior to the heating season the council only offered residents two choices: to either pay a little more for their heating or pay a lot more and keep the heating as it was. As the prices have risen, the heating has come down. One resident of Brunswick Close said: “I’ve never seen as many people so upset with the council – and it’s not just what they’ve done, but how they’ve done it.”
In response, Islington Council says that the measures have been put in place to help residents save money in the face of soaring energy costs – and that if there hadn’t been changes to communal heating, residents would have had to pay hundreds of pounds more each year.
“Our residents are living through a cost of living emergency,” said Cllr Una O’Halloran, Islington Council’s executive member for housing and communities. “Global energy prices have soared in the last year, leaving most people in our borough facing much higher heating bills. It’s vital that the council does everything it can to protect them from further financial hardship.
“Energy bills for communal heating on our estates are paid by estate residents, who face big bill increases because of soaring global energy prices. The changes to communal heating hours on some estates in Islington have been solely made to save Islington residents money on their energy bills. The council is spending £1.1m of the heat reserve fund to keep bills lower and soften the blow of vastly increased energy prices.”
The council said that communal heating is on for 13 hours a day during the heating season rather than the previous 18 hours and that was similar or more than the amount of time residents with individual boilers heat their homes.
While residents will be paying an average of £17.40 per week, without the council’s action the average bill would be three times higher, at £52.28 per week. These actions are saving the average resident £34.88 per week off their bill. The council said that it will be consulting again with residents.
