A SINK estate which is like a “fortress” could finally be demolished now the council has bought the shopping centre on which it stands.

Residents say Milford Towers in Catford, the scene of two horrific murders in recent years, is falling apart.

They paint a picture of broken-down lifts, drug-users in stairwells and rubbish piling up against graffiti-daubed walls.

But the maze-like structure, made up of four five-storey blocks containing 276 flats, could finally go after Lewisham Council finalised the purchase of Catford Shopping Centre for £11.52m.

Resident Kevin Gradidge said: “The whole place has got concrete cancer. You can see it’s crumbling.

“By April this year this place is supposed to meet Decent Homes Standards but it doesn’t have double glazing and not all the properties have central heating.

“Realistically, they have to demolish it.”

The 47-year-old minicab controller said: “In the 1970s this was probably like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon but people haven’t looked after it.

“I’ve got a nice flat but if you walk around here at 2am it can be pretty dodgy. I’m a big guy but I wouldn’t want to be a pensioner living here."

Retired hospital worker Rita Taylor has nine great-grandchildren but said they rarely visit.

The 71-year-old said: “The lifts keep breaking down, there are drug users on the stairs.

“I’d like to see it knocked down - they need to do something.

“It needs remodernising full stop .” News Shopper: Resident Kevin Gradidge says the estate was once like "the Hanging Gardens of Babylon"

The shopping centre was bought to speed up progress on the Catford Area Action Plan which aims to redevelop the area, including the centre and estate.

It has been bought with borrowed money, to be repaid by rents from the centre retailers, until a developer is found.

Mayor of Lewisham Sir Steve Bullock said: “The long-term plan is to demolish and rebuild.

“We’re hoping over the next year to put together plans with some real urgency behind them.”

But he denied the conditions on the council-owned estate were embarrassing for him.

He said: “It isn’t a slum. It’s a very badly designed piece of housing which was basically never designed to be public housing.

“We just wouldn’t build something like that now.”

Leader of Lewisham Lib Dems Councillor Chris Maines said: “It was built to some idealistic design for single people. It appears to the outside world to be a fortress.

“I’d welcome it being demolished. We desperately need more family homes in Lewisham. This brings an opportunity to meet that need.”

News Shopper: Rochelle Holness's dismembered body was found on the estate The body of 15-year-old Rochelle Holness was found dumped in four bags near rubbish chutes on the estate in September 2005.

Four days earlier she had left her home in Nelgarde Road, Catford, to make a phone call to her boyfriend.

And in May 2007, Warren Gray, 24, was chased up two flights of stairs in Milford Towers and shot in the chest with a sawn-off shotgun.

He had also been beaten as he tried to run from his attackers, leaving some of the block's stairwells smeared with blood.