Milford Towers Catford without working lifts for a year

Lewisham Council said it was fitting new lifts at Milford Towers in Catford last February in a bid to ‘reduce maintenance issues’, which cause the lifts to frequently stop working.

But one year on, residents of the estate, which is located minutes from the council’s headquarters on Catford Road, said not a single one of the apartment complex’s six lifts was working properly.

According to residents, five of the elevators are completely out of order, while a sixth, the only partially functioning lift, is missing its fifth-floor button.

An entrance door with an electronic lock which was broken when the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) visited the estate 12 months ago was still not working when it revisited on Thursday (February 1, 2024). 

Residents said the estate was plagued by drug addicts who sneak in through the broken entrance and take drugs in the building’s many stairwells.

Mattress left outside the estate on February 1, 2024

They added that the lack of security had made the apartment complex a magnet for opportunist thieves. 

Mum Asheka Rowe, 31, said her son was scared to use the stairs because of the lack of lighting in the building’s stairwells.

She said: “He calls me so that I can be with him to come up the stairs. There’s no lighting. Anybody can come through the entrance. We have the drug addicts on the stairs doing their thing.

“I think it’s a health and safety hazard for us. The only thing we ask [for] is to live in a safe place. That’s what we pay our rent for.”

Celso Neto, 44, said the building’s entrance doors needed upgrading to stop people from outside breaking in.

Rubbish left at the estate

He said: “I have felt very unsafe. Last week there were three people in the lifts using drugs. If you were a lady or kid it could have been very scary. Sometimes I avoid taking the lift. The first thing to do is to protect the doors.” 

Celso Neto

Mum-of-two Ysabel Guerola, 34, added: “I’ve been here seven years and the lifts have always been a problem. They break every week and they break when it rains.

“The front doors I’ve been complaining about since last year. I’ve had the police around twice because I’ve been broken into. Luckily nothing was stolen, but the council hasn’t done anything about the doors.” 

Around 30 residents from Milford Towers held a demonstration about conditions on the estate outside Lewisham Council’s headquarters in Catford on Wednesday afternoon (January 31). 

London Renters Union (LRU), which organised the protest, is demanding that the Labour-run council deals with repair issues on the estate and brings homes at Milford Towers that are outsourced to housing association Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) back under council control. 

Milford Towers in Catford

The housing association lets out the properties as temporary accommodation.

According to LRU, NHG charges as much as £950 a month for properties on the estate, almost twice as much as the cost of Lewisham Council’s in-house flats.

NHG says the accommodation is rented at below-market rates for the area. 

Azim Niazi, 39, was one of the residents who attended the rally outside the council’s offices on Wednesday. Explaining why he joined the protest, he said: “I’ve got two kids and bringing them back from school when the lift is out of order, they have to come up the stairs.

"They have to step over all the pee from the people hanging out here. It’s not safe at all.”

A Lewisham Council spokesperson said: “Residents in Milford Towers are understandably frustrated with some of the current and historic issues on the estate and we recognise that the management of the estate has not been up to the standards we expect.

“We are fully committed to working with residents to address these issues and the council is carrying out extensive improvements works across the estate, investing over £14m to support this work.

“This includes refurbishing and replacing faulty lifts, repairing roofs, installing new double-glazed windows, cleaning and redecorating communal areas and replacing security doors. We have also recently put in security patrols on the estate to deter anti-social behaviour.”

A Notting Hill Genesis spokesperson said: “We lease 197 homes from Lewisham Council, which are then made available to private renters, under assured short-hold tenancies.

"We are only responsible for repairs within individual flats and not for lifts, communal areas or external doors and to ensure we carry out our responsibility as best we can, we have put in place a dedicated on-site repairs service for residents to use so internal repairs can be dealt with quickly and efficiently.”