What the law says (and what it doesn't say)

Another of the claims often made by Council staff and Councillors is that the second phase of works to the estate's district heating and hot water system is required by law. That the law tells the Council to do it. 

Unfortunately, just like the claims about costs we discussed in our last post, this simply isn't true and we're now going to explain why. 

The law the Council is referring to is made up of the Heat Network (Metering and Billing) Regulations 2014 (as amended in 2015 and 2020) and the Energy Act 2023.

It is certainly true that these pieces of legislation require the owners of buildings with communal or district heating and hot water systems (“heat networks”) to do a number of things but the wholesale replacement of an existing communal or district heating and hot water system for the sole purpose of installing heat meters is not one of them. 

The law actually requires the owners of buildings with communal or district heating and hot water systems to register those buildings with the Office of Product Safety and Standards. 

They must do this before the 1st of September 2022 (and there's some doubt as to whether RBK&C have actually done this and complied with the law). 

And as part of that registration they need to determine, in the case of buildings that don’t already have heat meters such as those on the Cremorne Estate, whether it is possible to fit them. 

They are meant to work out whether it is technically feasible - if it is even possible - and whether it is financially viable - how much it would cost and whether that sum is reasonable.

And should they determine that it is not technically feasible, because it’s too difficult or simply can’t be done, or it is not financially viable, because it would cost too much to install heat meters in the building, they need to inform the OPSS accordingly as part of their registration.

And that’s it. That’s what the law actually requires a building owner to do. 

And there’s a very good reason why this is what the law actually requires.

Councils and Housing Associations own many buildings with communal or district heating and hot water systems that are affected by this law. Do you know who else owns many buildings with communal or district heating and hot water systems that are also affected by this law? Private landlords. And when the government wrote the law they had to take them into account. 

It would not be reasonable to require building owners of whatever kind to rip out and replace the otherwise perfectly functional district or communal heating and hot water systems in their buildings for the sole purpose of installing heat meters. Which is why the law doesn’t.

The closest the law gets to proposing anything like that is in the case of "major building renovation", when a building is most likely a construction site devoid of residents, the work can be carried out without impacting the lives of hundreds and the building owner has already committed to investing a large amount of money renovating the building. It would clearly be unreasonable to demand such a thing at any other time. 

Let us in any case consider the buildings of the Cremorne Estate:

None of the buildings on the Cremorne Estate currently have heat meters. 

The district heating and hot water system was designed and installed before heat meters even existed and, to be honest, the professionals who designed and installed it were more concerned about providing the residents with decent heating and hot water than billing them for it. 

As a result, and to no one’s surprise, the system does not lend itself to the installation of heat meters and it is impossible to install them. That is to say that it is not technically feasible. 

In order to fit heat meters you would have to rip out and replace the entire system. This would cost millions. Some might consider that an unreasonable sum. That is to say that they would not consider it financially viable.

And that is setting aside the disruption that such works would cause. The estate would be a construction site. For years. 

All the Council actually needs to do is to register all of the buildings on the Cremorne Estate with the OPSS having properly documented and collated evidence to the effect that it is neither technically feasible or financially viable to install heat meters. 

But that’s not what they’re doing. Why not? 

Only the Council knows but the following has been suggested:

Councils are many things but being able to demonstrate any real concern about how much things cost or what impact their latest schemes have on the lives of their tenants and leaseholders is rarely one of them. 

They may moan constantly about not having any money - and RBK&C’s housing department certainly does do that an awful lot - but they also spend rather a lot of it with wild abandon on ill conceived and poorly implemented projects. 

They are also rarely concerned about the disruption those projects cause their tenants and leaseholders. They may claim that they care deeply about the wellbeing of their tenants and leaseholders but in practice they repeatedly demonstrate otherwise. 

As a result, where a private landlord might deem it technically unviable to install heat meters to the existing district heating and water system and financially unviable to replace it for the sole purpose of fitting said heat meters (setting aside, for the moment, the disruption that such works would cause) the Council appears to have reached the exact opposite conclusion. 

Why? Because money is no object and they simply don't care how disruptive the work will be or what the end result will look like. 

Intrusive works in people's homes that might require them to move out for weeks or months on end? No problem. 

Unsightly pipes running through communal areas and inside homes that were never designed to accommodate them? No problem. 

A bill running into the millions? No problem. 

You only have to wander up to the north of the borough, to the Lancaster West Estate, site of the Grenfell Tower fire, to see all of this playing out. 

On the Lancaster West Estate there are ongoing works to replace a district heating and hot water system that have already taken many years and are going to take many more. Works that have required residents to be decanted. Works that are so well conceived and designed that they have resulted in large pipes traversing many communal areas and covering the inside of people's homes. Works with construction costs running into the millions (and counting). And residents paying much more for their heating and hot water than they used to. 

Everything that concerns us about the second phase of works to the estate’s district heating and hot water system has come true on the Lancaster West Estate. 

All because money is no object and the Council simply doesn't care how disruptive the work will be or what the end result will look like. 

Councillors and Council officers don't care about our elderly, disabled and most vulnerable residents. They will be extremely cold as they will not be able to heat their homes properly with the increased costs of heating and hot water.

Those residents with incurable conditions such as arthritis, kidney disease, cancer etc will become further unwell and have to be hospitalised and receive social care at an exhorbitant cost to the public purse. 

We will all suffer the consequences of the Council's and Councillors' selfish and ill thought out plans.

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How much will our heating cost us?

One of the many ways Council officers and Councillors will try and convince residents that the installation of heat meters is to their benefit is by claiming that it will help reduce their heating and hot water costs. 

It would be wonderful if this were true. Sadly it is not. 

Back in 2019 the Council asked one of its consultants, a firm named Calford Seaden, to find out how much the residents of the Cremorne Estate would have to pay for their heating and hot water if heat meters were installed in their homes and used to bill them. 

The consultants went ahead and did just that. They worked out how much the residents of the estate would have to pay, on average, if the Council installed heat meters in their homes, used heat meters to measure how much heating and hot water they used, and then billed them for it.

They produced a report for the Council. A neighbour was kind enough to let us see, read and digest the contents of this report and, as it's pretty dry stuff, we've tried to summarise it below. 

What did they do? 

The first thing the consultants from Calford Seaden did was to work out how much energy, in the form of heating and hot water, the flats on the estate actually used. 

No one has ever measured this, so Calford Seaden had to work it out from scratch.

They sat down and estimated how much energy each flat was likely to need. They took into account the age and design of the buildings, whether they had any form of insulation, the size of individual flats and the people likely to be living in them (i.e. whether they were families with children, the elderly, the disabled, the vulnerable, and so on). 

They eventually arrived at these figures: a one-bed flat would consume around 8,000 kWh of energy per year, a two-bed flat would consume about 10,500 kWh per year and a three-bed flat would consume around 14,000 kWh per year. 

If the Cremorne Estate was a brand new housing estate these figures would seem a bit high. But the Cremorne Estate is not new. Most of the estate was built in the 1950s and there is currently little or no insulation on many of the buildings. Without constant heating many flats are extremely cold. The figures are a reasonable estimate. 

Calford Seaden then went out and had a look at how communal and district heating and hot water systems across London operated. They focused on those that used heat meters inside people's homes to measure their energy consumption and bill them for it. They made a note of what they found and used it to work out how much the residents of the Cremorne Estate were likely to pay for their heating and hot water if heat meters were installed. 

At this point we're going to cut to the chase. Calford Seaden's detailed findings and calculations are really interesting if you're into that stuff but most people aren't, so we're just going to tell you what they found instead. 

What did they find?

Firstly, let us emphasise that these calculations were originally made in 2019. 

That's before the pandemic and, more importantly, before the energy crisis that came about as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

It's five years later, the peak of the energy crisis has passed but energy costs remain stubbornly high, roughly double what they were before the pandemic, and they show little sign of going down any time soon. Ofgem has allowed the energy cap to increase twice so far this year. The direction of travel is upwards not downwards. Bear that in mind when you read what follows.

In 2019 Calford Seaden calculated that a resident living in a one-bed flat would have to pay 2.1 times (210%) what they did then, a resident living in a two-bed flat would have to pay 2.4 times (240%) what they did then, and the resident of a three-bed flat would have to pay 2.9 times (290%) what they did then. 

Let's turn those multiples into figures: 

The resident of a one bed flat would have to pay around £1,100 a year with a heat meter. 

The resident of a two bed flat would have to pay around £1,270 a year with a heat meter.

The resident of a three bed flat would have to pay around £1,500 a year with a heat meter. 

These figures would include a standing charge of about £650 a year that everyone would have to pay even if they used no heating or hot water at all. 

In 2019. 

No one on the estate was paying that kind of money for their heating and hot water in 2019. Everyone was paying, at most, half of what that one-bed flat would be paying (don't believe us? check your records). So, even before the energy crisis, everyone would be paying more than double for their heating and hot water if heat meters were installed on the estate. 

And, to no one's surprise, the Council kept that pretty quiet.  

But it gets worse. 

Energy costs have roughly doubled since 2019. So you can take the figures given above, double them and you have what you are likely to have to pay today: 

The resident of a one bed flat would have to pay around £2,200 a year. 

The resident of a two bed flat would have to pay around £2,540 a year.

The resident of a three bed flat would have to pay around £3,000 a year. 

And these figures would include that hefty standing charge, originally estimated at £650 a year, that is also likely to have doubled, which everyone would have to pay even if they use no heating or hot water at all. 

Where does that leave us? 

Well for a start we can treat the claim that heat meters will save you money as what it is: a con. 

No one living on the estate will save any money if heat meters are installed. The opposite will be the case: residents will pay a lot more than they are paying today. 

Sadly, it gets even worse. 

A large proportion of the Cremorne's Estate's population is elderly, or vulnerable, or has young children. These residents spend a significant amount of their time at home. 

Many elderly residents suffer from complex medical conditions. The health of these residents will deteriorate if they can't keep their homes warm. Their health will suffer and they risk losing their independence. 

Many residents have limited incomes. Many elderly residents only have a state pension and already depend on pension credits. Some families already depend on local food banks. 

They are the ones that will end up paying much more for their heating and hot water than they do today. They'll have to pay the hefty standing charge, and then they'll have to pay for the heating and hot water they use. And before you know it they're facing the extremely steep increases in heating and hot water costs Calford Seaden predicted - up to 300%.

Remember, heating and hot water costs are not covered by Housing Benefit or Universal Credit. But the Council will still expect residents to find the money to pay for their heating and hot water from somewhere.

What will happen if they simply don't have the money to pay for the heating and hot water they need? They'll either run up a large debt to the Council or have to turn off their heating and refrain from using any hot water and suffer the consequences to their health and wellbeing. 

We've done the sums. A resident in this situation will have to reduce their heating and hot water usage by more than 75% to try and ensure that they pay no more than they do today. They'll go from being able to heat their home properly to only being able to afford to have the heating on for five or six hours a day at most. For those who spend much of their time at home, they'll be spending that time in a rather cold flat. 

Does this sound even remotely reasonable to you?  

How can Council officers and Councillors be so cruel as to inflict this on our most vulnerable residents? What have these residents done to deserve this ? 

But this IS what the Council is proposing. They know who lives on the estate. They know what will happen to them and the harm it will inevitably cause. Do any of them care? 

Our Councillors are: 

• Gerard Hargreaves (cllr.gerard.hargreaves@rbkc.gov.uk), 
• Laura Burns (cllr.laura.burns@rbkc.gov.uk) and 
• Sonia Zvedeniuk (cllr.sonia.zvedeniuk@rbkc.gov.uk). 

We should all let them know how we feel by emailing them. 

Heating Phase 2 Key Decision

A Key Decision for Councillor Sof McVeigh, the Lead Member for Housing Management, Housing Safety and Building Homes, has been brought to our attention.

It is Key Decision KD1010888. 

You can find it on the Council website here: KD1010888. It looks like this:

The Key Decision is described as "covering the contract award in connection with the procurement of a contractor to deliver the Phase 2 domestic heating and hot water works and building fabric works at Cremorne Estate in the Chelsea Riverside Ward". 

In plain English that means that it is about the appointment of a contractor to carry out the heating works inside homes on the Cremorne Estate.

The decision is dated the 27 November 2024. That is the date that it became a matter of public record. The expected decision date is given as "Monday, 25 August 2025". That means the Council expect to have appointed a contractor to carry out the works before that date. 

If there was any doubt as to the Council's plans then this Key Decision eliminates them. 

This is happening. The Council DOES plan for there to be people in your home ripping out your existing radiators and all the pipework for both the heating and the hot water. 

The disruption to you, your household and your home will be massive. The Council will try to downplay it. They are misleading you and everyone else. 

They have done the same on other estates. They downplay the disruption works will cause. The disruption caused is then as bad as residents feared. The Council count on it simply being too late for anyone to do anything about it. Does this sound particularly "caring" to you? 

Now, for the obvious question is: if the Council expect to have appointed a contractor by the 25th of August 2025 when do they plan to consult all of the estate's residents? When do they plan to serve Section 20 notices on leaseholders? When do they plan to tell everyone about the 300% increase in heating and hot water costs that will result? 

As is often the case the Key Decision claims that resident consultation has already taken place. It says: "The residents on Cremorne Estate are aware of the Phase 2 works that are now following Phase 1" and that "The project team shall continue with resident consultation and engagement from phase 1 into phase 2". 

As far as we know there has been no meaningful resident consultation or information about any these works. There was little or no meaningful consultation about phase 1 (we would argue so little as to be equivalent to none), and there has been no meaningful consultation to date about phase 2. And there is no sign that the project team have any meaningful consultation planned any time soon.

Is this yet another Council Key Decision full of porkies?

To make matters worse our local Councillors have known about this project for many years. They have told us nothing and appear to have consented to our most vulnerable residents suffering the consequences. These are many of the same Councillors that wanted to demolish us. 

Heating - Phase 2

Back in July 2020 we sounded the alarm with regards to the Council's plans for the estate's communal heating and hot water system and, in particular, what the Council had decided to refer to as "phase 2" - work inside people's homes.

That original blog post is here. It's worth reading. 

A number of documents have since come into our possession which confirm many if not all of the concerns we had about the proposed heating works. 

The first document is a leaflet, pictured below. 

The second is a briefing note of some kind, describing some very specific issues and concerns in much more detail. That is pictured below. 

We will post our thoughts on these two documents shortly. In the meantime we thought it best to bring them to the attention of as many residents as possible. 

When the cat's away ... run a consultation.

An eagle eyed resident was kind enough to point out that the Council's consultation on opening up our gardens is both very short and taking place entirely during the month of August when many residents are likely to be away. 

The letter from Patrick Sean Sullivan is dated the 6th of August. The deadline given is the 28th of August. That is, at best, 22 calendar days. And all within the month of August. 

The consultation period is also unusually short. The equivalent letter for a proposal to paint some shed and garage doors was dated the 16th of July and set a deadline of the 14th of August. That's 29 calendar days. 

The proposal to paint shed and garage doors will not have a negative impact on anyone. Not all residents have a shed or a garage and many simply won't care whether the Council paints them or not.

The proposal to open up our gardens to the general public (for that is what it is) will have a detrimental impact on all residents, and particularly those living next to the gardens, for the many, many reasons we have cited previously (see our previous post for the gory details). 

Would any sane person believe that a proposal to paint some shed and garage doors is worthy of a longer consultation period than a proposal to open up our gardens to all and sundry? We suspect not. 

But the Council's Housing Management Department clearly do. 

Why? Because they are perfectly aware of the fact that a significant number of the estate's residents are likely to be away for some or all of the month of August. And they are quite cynically taking advantage of the situation. 

They are hoping that those likely to object will be away and will miss the consultation altogether.

Dissenting voices are very clearly not welcome. And if those likely to dissent are intentionally (ahem, accidentally) excluded by rigging (ahem, setting) the dates of the consultation in this way so much the better.  

They are quite simply trying to engineer the end result they want. 

The consultation is really a non-consultation. It is designed to tick a box not find out what most residents actually think. Because it's quite clear that Housing Management don't really care what anyone thinks. They simply want to have their way.

This is the kind of behaviour that you might expect of dodgy property developers with questionable planning applications who submit their planning applications at the height of Summer in a cynical attempt to try and avoid any opposition from those affected (and we've had plenty of those before), not the Council.