Hundreds suffer heating issues in east London

Hundreds of residents across three estates in east London were left with limited or no hot water due to ongoing heating issues.

More than 450 households across Cranston Estate, Cropley Court and Thaxted Court in Hackney may have been affected for months by Shoreditch Heat Network outages, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).

Resident Michelle Drummond complained to Hackney Council and said tenants had "limited to no heating and hot water throughout the very cold winter months".

Hackney Council stressed it was "working hard" to find a long-term replacement and minimise disruption to residents. Heating and hot water was restored on Sunday.

Estate-wide network failures date back to 2019, when one of the affected block's boiler houses broke down.

Problems with utilities and poor communication were brought to the council in June last year, but there were four further heating outages from October onwards.

Ms Drummond, who has lived on the Cranston Estate for 21 years, said she resorted to boiling saucepans of water in order to have a hot bath, because "the water from my bathroom tap is lukewarm".

After phoning the council for updates and advice, Ms Drummond claimed she was told by one staff member to open her oven door for a couple of hours in order to heat her home, but Hackney Council said it "did not recognise" this claim.

She added some residents were still getting either "tepid" water or no heating or hot water, despite other people being told by the council the issue had been resolved.

One leaseholder said the latest spate of outages prompted them to make a formal complaint, in October, but they did not receive a response for more than two months, and they have since asked to escalate the matter.

In a written complaint sent to the council on 11 January, Ms Drummond said the matter was "beyond a joke" and criticised what she described as the council's "upsetting" silence on the issue.

She wrote that "loads and loads of people were suffering" and that "my belief is that we are stuck in this problem due to poor planning and poor management."

She added that a meeting with cabinet member for housing services and Hoxton West ward councillor Clayeon McKenzie had been requested several times, but there had been no response.

Replying to Ms Drummond, Mr McKenzie said he was "very disappointed to hear" about his department's response to recent outages in recent weeks and that he understood "the residents' frustrations and the impact these disruptions are having on their daily lives".

Hackney Council stressed it was "working hard" to find a long-term replacement and minimise disruption to residents' heating and hot water.

Housing service director Steve Waddington apologised "for any inconvenience this has caused those connected to it".

He added six main heat exchangers had been ordered as a "preventative measure", and would be installed "as soon as they are delivered", while two more boilers were expected to be installed and running by early February at the latest.

A feasibility study into long-term options for the network was also under way, he said.

The council added all heating-related issues on the estates had been "responded to and repaired on the same day", but Ms Drummond said some residents were not feeling the impact of this and needed clarity on the ongoing situation.

Residents used an Freedom of Information request to find out the number of times the boiler houses connected to each building had failed since installation, but the Town Hall said due to the 2020 cyber attack, the majority of this information "would now be unavailable".

The LDRS asked the council how much it had spent addressing heating issues for the three estates, but was told: "Due to the way this information was recorded, we don't hold any further information."

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