At the meeting hosted by Ben Coleman that took place on the 8th of May 2025 the Council agreed to provide a number of reports and other information to Ben Coleman's team before the end of the month of May.
It is now early August and having heard very little from anyone we were starting to wonder: Has the Council lived up to its promises? Has it provided all of the information Doug Goldring said it would?
We spoke to a number of residents, including those who took a leading role in the meeting, and have the following to report. Below are listed each of the items the Council promised to provide and whether or not they have provided it.
Item #1: To produce some kind of condition survey/report.
By all accounts no one has seen anything approaching a condition survey/report. The answer would appear to be "no".
Item #2: To produce historic repair data for the estate’s communal heating and hot water system covering a period of at least five years.
Again, by all accounts the Council have yet to provide any historic repair data for the estate's communal heating and hot water system. The answer would also appear to be "no".
Item #3: To provide a copy of the business case for the works, as this supposedly contains a cost-benefit analysis that Council staff believe supports their claim that wholesale replacement is cheaper than ongoing maintenance.
We are told that the Council did supply a copy of a business case in relation to the second phase of works to the communal heating and hot water system.
We've been provided with a copy. And unfortunately the business case is about having to employ external consultants to oversee the work. It does not contain any financial details or a cost-benefit analysis of any kind that might justify the claim that wholesale replacement is cheaper than ongoing maintenance. A claim that several Council staff made at the meeting, whether they like it or not.
The general consensus amongst the residents that have seen the business is that either the Council have supplied the wrong business case or it simply isn't as described at the meeting (and heaven forbid that the Council staff may have misled the residents "in the heat of the moment", because that's clearly never happened before).
So credit to the Council for providing something. But no credit for false advertising. The business case provided is not the one they described or promised. It does not contain any financial data in relation to the ongoing maintenance of the communal heating and hot water system, it does not contain any kind of cost-benefit analysis, and it does not support the claim made at the meeting that wholesale replacement is cheaper than ongoing maintenance.
Item #4: To produce a new, up to date, model of the heating and hot water costs Council tenants and leaseholders would face once the works are complete.
The Council sent Ben Coleman a report titled "Heating Cost Assessment for the Cremorne Estate" on the 6th of June. We've been provided with a copy and had a look.
Our conclusion: the report is incredibly simplistic and is of little or no practical value to anyone as a result.
In the report, the latest consultants employed by the Council (who are not Calford Seaden) make a number of claims in relation to how the first and second phases of work to the communal heating and hot water system will reduce the system's gas consumption and related costs but fail to show how any of their figures were arrived at. It is therefore impossible for anyone (including the Council staff that should be carrying out the due diligence required) to tell whether the claims have a firm basis in reality or have simply been plucked out of thin air.
The consultants then calculated what tenants and leaseholders are likely to pay by dividing an estimate of the Council's annual expenditure on gas by the number of properties on the estate.
We are not joking. That's literally what they did: estimate the Council's annual gas bill, divide it by the number of properties on the estate, claim that's what people will end up paying.
This is the calculation you might perform to get a rough, finger in the air approximation of what someone might have to pay if you didn't know any better. But there is no reason for the consultants not to know any better. They will have been briefed by the Council, and the Council knows exactly how tenants and leaseholders are billed today and how they are likely to be billed in future. Why would the Council not provide their consultants with this information?
So yes, the Council sent through a report. But it's so simplistic and so detached from reality as to be completely worthless. It certainly doesn't address the question of what tenants and leaseholders are likely to pay once heat meters are installed or whether any of them might find the resulting energy costs financially crippling.
The Calford Seaden report from 2019 suggests that residents will end up paying a lot more than they do now and that many will struggle to heat their homes properly and use the hot water they need, and the Council have yet to provide any evidence to the contrary.
Item #5: Full details, including the eligibility criteria and any caps, of the financial support available to Council tenants who cannot afford the increased heating and hot water costs forecast.
The Council are apparently claiming that they cannot provide this information at this time as they are still working out what such a scheme would look like given the need to comply with the latest guidance from Ofgem.
However, at the meeting we were told that there was an existing financial assistance scheme already in operation, and many of the residents present were clearly completely unaware of it. There is nothing stopping the Council from providing details of this current scheme to everyone.
And there is also nothing to stop the Council from indicating how the supposed "future scheme" is likely to differ from the current scheme. For example, is the eligibility criteria likely to change? If so, how? Is the scheme likely to help more tenants? Or less?
The complete lack of information is therefore hard to justify.
The answer in any case is "no", the Council have not provided this information.
Item #6: Full details of what financial support, including the likely eligibility criteria and any caps, the Council might be able to provide leaseholders who cannot afford the increased heating and hot water costs forecast.
The Council have not provided this information. They have however stated that no financial assistance for leaseholders will be forthcoming from the General Fund.
At the meeting the Council stated that no financial assistance for leaseholders can be made available from the Housing Revenue Account.
Add those two statements together and the response appears to be that there will be no financial assistance for leaseholders from the Council, full stop.
So the Council does appear to have answered this question. We'll give them that. Just not in a particularly helpful way.
In any case, if the Council does indeed intend to provide no financial assistance whatsoever to the many leaseholders on low and/or fixed incomes it should do the honest thing and tell them as soon as possible.
Write to all of the estate's leaseholders and let them know that they can expect no help with any increased heating and hot water costs from the Council.
Item #7: To produce a detailed summary of what a proper, comprehensive condition survey would involve and how much it would cost.
Let's keep this short: there's no sign of this either.
And that's the list. So where does this leave us?
It is now nearly three months after the meeting. From where we're standing it looks like the Council have managed to provide just three of the items they promised:
- A business case, that is not as described at the meeting.
- A report on the heating and hot water costs that tenants and leaseholders would face once heat meters are installed that is so simplistic and detached from reality as to be completely worthless.
- A statement that there will be no financial assistance for leaseholders.
We are told that that the Council have promised to supply Ben Coleman's office with a condition report of some kind as well as the historic repair data for the estate's communal heating and hot water system for the last five years as soon as they are available.
We sincerely hope that both will be a marked improvement over the "Heating Cost Assessment for the Cremorne Estate" and we would suggest that someone at the Council cast a critical eye over both before sending them to Ben Coleman's office.
Not only does sending out nonsense like the "Heating Cost Assessment for the Cremorne Estate" waste everyone's time but it calls into question the professionalism of the Council staff involved. Because anyone who's read it will be asking themselves: Does no one at the Council check whether what the consultants are writing makes any sense or is even remotely plausible? Is no one at the Council capable of spotting and questioning clearly unrealistic or nonsensical claims?
To conclude: the Council have clearly failed to provide all of the information they promised in the timescales they agreed to. But if the Council really means to convince people that the second phase of works and the installation of heat meters is necessary, and that residents will not be facing financially crippling heating and hot water costs as a result, they need to try much, much harder and actually deliver what they promise.
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