Wallington residents complaining of living in squalor have threatened a mutiny unless conditions improve.

A group of mums say they will withhold their rent until broken windows and leaking ceilings in a block of flats in Morden Road are repaired.

One mother, Maxine Lickfold, says living in block 24 has become a nightmare.

She claims holes in the corridor ceilings are letting rain run in over electrical cables, jagged glass has been left in broken windows and shards from smashed communal doors have been left scattered over the floor.

"There are a lot of elderly people and children here, and it is becoming a dangerous place to live," she told the Guardian.

"People are sick and tired of living in squalor. I have been living here seven years and in the last six months it has really gone downhill."

She also said tenants have been robbed of seven of their eight car parking spaces, because dumped cars are not being removed.

The council says

because it is private land, the housing association has to pay £47 to have each vehicle taken, but it has no record of any requests from the association.

A spokesman for the Kent-based association, English Churches Housing Group, said the housing officer was always on the phone to the council about the dumped cars.

He added: "If the residents have concerns we are only too happy for them to come to us. Our housing officer was there two or three weeks ago. She cannot look at every area, but there were not any noticeable outstanding repairs."

Since then, the housing officer had not received any complaints, he added. He did say safety gates will be installed to keep out dumped cars.

November 23, 2001 11:31