As the fourth heatwave of the year hit the UK on Wednesday, Benice Bodah and her three teenage sons braced for more scorching temperatures inside their south-west London home. The two-bedroom flat has a built-in air-conditioning unit, but it has worked only intermittently in the almost three years since the family were placed in temporary accommodation at Britannia Point in Colliers Wood. “It has not been easy, but what can we do?” said Bodah, 48.
Several councils have now agreed to stop housing families in emergency accommodation in the glass-fronted block after the Guardian revealed they had been told they couldn’t use the air-conditioning during heatwaves as it had “not been offered as an amenity” for them. The 19-storey building is owned by Criterion Capital, set up by the billionaire property magnate Asif Aziz. The temporary tenancies can last from weeks to years and are managed separately by letting agencies, including the London-based Aura Assets Management.
Wandsworth council, which has placed residents in the block, is now making “immediate” plans to remove its tenants from the tower. A Wandsworth council spokesperson said: “As ever, the welfare of residents is our priority and we are working at pace to ensure suitable alternative accommodation is available.”
Sutton council said it had already stopped placing people there, and was “working closely with all remaining Sutton residents in the building to ensure they are able to move to other accommodation”. Croydon council said it faced very high demand for temporary accommodation, and was not removing people, but had raised concerns with Criterion and that council staff had been carrying out “welfare checks” with those in the block.
Stuart Neaverson, a Labour councillor in Merton who has been assisting residents, has called on other councils that have placed residents in the building to follow suit. “Criterion Capital, who own the building and the air conditioning units, need to explain how this could ever happen and why some residents are still going without while temperatures hit 35C,” he said.
A spokesperson for Criterion Capital said: “As the freeholder, we engage with our leaseholders and encourage them to work with local authorities to support tenants in these unprecedented circumstances.” Aura Assets Management has been approached for comment.
Since the Guardian reported that temporary accommodation households were prohibited from using in-built air conditioning, some have received letters saying they should “feel free to use” it if it was working, at a cost of between £35 and £50 each month. However, some tenants are still without working units and others have said the additional charge is unaffordable.
By Wednesday evening, the unit in Bodah’s flat was working, but she said she had no choice but to keep it switched off because she could not afford the extra cost.
Several temporary residents with tenancies managed by Aura told the Guardian on Wednesday that repeated complaints over inoperative air conditioning units had been left unresolved, in some cases for more than a year.
Mahad Maalin, who is living with his 81-year-old mother, had given up on the air conditioning unit after the issue was not resolved last summer. Like Bodah, he said he would not pay the cost of running it for the remaining month of summer, and instead has two fans and keeps the blinds drawn.
Another tenant, Sabrina Walters, raised concerns over her children’s health as her one-year-old daughter was overheating and her 12-year-old had suffered cluster nose bleeds, which can be caused by overheating.
“I’m not fussed about myself, but when it comes to my child’s health, especially at that age: she’s one year old, she didn’t ask to be over-dehydrated,” said Walters. “She’s clammy, so you can tell it’s her body fighting to keep cool. That really pissed me off.”
The family escaped the heat of their flat by going outside, which they said was cooler, or would spend time in one room with multiple fans. The windows in their third-floor flat don’t extend fully.
It was only after Walters raised the matter with her local MP that her air conditioning unit was turned back on, after a two-week outage. She said other residents, including a mother of two, had told her that their air conditioning units remained broken. “I felt bad even saying mine is on to be honest,” said the 31-year-old.
Before councils announced they had removed their tenants from the tower, Walters was relieved to soon be moving elsewhere. “I don’t like having to feel like I have to argue to live somewhere,” she said.
Earlier this year Criterion Capital was accused of trying to mass evict tenants in the weeks leading up to the banning of no-fault evictions, which it has denied.
Aura previously told the Guardian the air conditioning was now “fully operational”. When asked about the email sent to a resident saying tenants in temporary accommodation were not given access to air conditioning, it said this had been “issued by the building management” based on “information and operational arrangements in place at the time”.