Leaseholders faced with thousands of pounds worth of bills for a 40-year-old “neglected” heating system may have to pay for new cladding too. 

Brandon Estate in Camberwell was refurbished in wooden cladding ten years ago which cost leaseholders £25,000, but it might need to be replaced because of stricter regulations.

The issue was raised at Southwark Council’s cabinet meeting on Tuesday, where councillors heard from frustrated residents about “rotting pipes, exploding radiators and damp”.  

Last Christmas, residents were left without heating and hot water for weeks after the boilers gave out in freezing temperatures.  

Chair of Brandon 2 Tenants and Residents Association, June Lewis, asked the cabinet why leaseholders should pay for the council’s “neglect” after being handed a £3,500 bill for urgent repairs.  

She said: “Can you tell me when we can expect the service charges for phases 2 and 3, confirmation of the works and notice of Section 20, when they will be sent to the leaseholders and also why are we paying when it’s your neglect? 

“It’s as simple as that, it’s your neglect. You hire the worst workmen, you don’t keep up the repairs on the radiators, they’re exploding, and the pipes are rotting.  

“Every one of us could tell you about a leaseholder who’s got pipes in the kitchen or the bathroom where they are just corroding, which leads to damp, which leads to neglect, which leads to higher charges.” 

The council is currently reassessing cladding on estates throughout the borough in the wake of stricter regulations brought in after the Grenfell tragedy – and if it needs to replaced, leaseholders will have to pay tens of thousands of pounds. 

One leaseholder on the estate, who attended the meeting, asked cabinet about the possible charges.  

She said: “In 2007/08 Southwark Council put wooden cladding on our building and we never found out [whether it’s] some combustible material.  

“In the light of the tragedy in Grenfell Tower, if Southwark Council decides to remove the cladding that is already there, and leaseholders paid about £25,000 in 2007/08, who would bear the cost of removing that wooden cladding?” 

Cabinet member for housing management and modernisation, Keiron Williams, said the council “can’t get away from” charging leaseholders.  

He said Brandon Estate would be one of the first looked at in terms of cladding to see if meets current building regulations.  

“We’ve no reason to think there’s anything up there that doesn’t meet building regulations of the time but we want to have a look and make sure everything is safe.  

“In terms of the cost if anything needs to be changed, and I’ve no reason at the moment to think it does need to be changed, we’d have to come back and look at that and we’ll bring back a policy decision on how to charge that.  

“I completely understand if you’ve paid for work to be done in the recent past – why would you want to pay for it to be done again,” he said, adding once the cladding was assessed the council would have an “honest conversation” about how it would be paid for if necessary.  

The council is still carrying out the repairs launched after the boilers failed last winter and will embark on major works to improve pipes that connect the boilers to the towers in the estate  .

Cllr Williams said: “I appreciate the bills associated with those things are incredibly difficult for leaseholders, they’re not even over time, at the moment you’re faced with potentially two larger bills in short succession. 

“The system is about 40 years old now and is getting to the point where it needs more money spending on it.  

“The difficulty we both have, and leaseholders particularly, is that the leases are clear that repairs and maintaining the system is something that we charge a proportional cost to leaseholders.  

“We do have to make that charge, it’s something that’s set out in the way leases work, and we can’t get away from that.” 

He added that if Southwark were to bring the heating systems across the borough up to standard, it would cost up to £350 million.  

“So we need to think through carefully how we can afford that for our tenants and how we can do it in a way that’s affordable for leaseholders and fair for leaseholders,” he said.