There is so much to say about the treatment of residents of Redstone House, it’s hard to know where to begin. The start should always be decent homes and dignified treatment for all, and it is fair to say that has not been their experience.
Ten hours to leave
At 10am on 8th May, residents who visited a certain floor of the property discovered that a prohibition notice had been served by the Fire Brigade, stating that residents needed to vacate by 8pm that night, or they would be arrested.
At around 4pm that day, we caught up with a resident who was in tears: “We can’t go to Basildon. We can’t go to Luton. We need our support services that are nearby and to be close to our family. What happens to our stuff?
“We have been told the landlord will give us a ring by 8pm to tell us where we are going. What do we do?
“This is our home. It’s been our home for years. We’ve looked after it well, never missed a rent payment. What did we do wrong? We wanted a dignified end, with time to get out. Now we have a few hours to get together what we can carry and will be leaving our furniture here with the rats. If they wanted to help us, wouldn’t they have offered us something else? How do we know we’ll be able to get back in?”
We’ve been told by a reporter that there are 25 adults and 27 children who called Redstone House their home. Many people have lived at Redstone House and in Harlow for several years, with their support networks, jobs schools, and colleges all in the local area.
You can see and hear more from residents and inside the building in the coverage from ITV Anglia and BBC Look East.
There is a lot of disinformation being published about residents being placed here by outside councils. For the majority of residents, this does not appear to be the case.
Living conditions have never been perfect
We spoke to a resident at the MRCT Centre in the old BHS building in April 2024. They and their two young children lived in a property managed by Nickold’s Property Management.
They told us that the lift was not working and they had no hot running water – and hadn’t had any for the entire time they had been living there, which was coming up to five years. They slept in the same room as their children, as they felt unsafe in their property as the windows opened onto the roof of New Look.
Other parents have told us of the struggle of getting children and shopping in, as either way you have to leave your shopping and child alone at some point, without the lift working.
Things got worse with a change of building owner and management company
Redstone House was sold by auction in October 2024. Residents heard from the new owners in January. From this time onwards, Nickold’s were no longer involved in the management of any of the flats – in fact, Nickold’s reached out to residents to say that the treatment from the new management company wasn’t right, and people had a right to stay in their properties.
While things were not up to a decent standard, prior to the sale, things deteriorated with residents reporting:
Infestation of vermin
Rats, mice, fleas and cockroaches were all reported to be in the building and some of the flats. Harlow Council issued a Notice Requiring Steps to Be Taken to Destroy Rats or Mice or to Keep Land Free of Rats and Mice by 16/04/25
Lack of access to bin stores
The bin store to the property is located at the back of the building, visible from the Police Station/ Job Centre side of the road. This was overflowing, out onto the street. Who was supposed to be emptying the bins, and why weren’t they?
After the Notice from Environmental Health, the bin store was boarded up. This did not last long, and rubbish was soon overflowing again.
Residents reported being told to keep their rubbish in their flats and walk around the town to throw their rubbish into other bins.
On 25th April Environmental Health representatives met with the landlord who boarded up the bin store again and installed a keypad with a code. However, the bin store still had not been emptied, so residents still had nowhere to dispose of their rubbish.
Fire safety and security
For a long time residents had been raising concerns over fire safety, especially since there is one main entrance/exit out of the building. With no lights in the stairwell for some time, which residents had raised with the landlord, the building became particularly unsafe when the sun went down, with other people coming into the building.
The lack of lights on the stairwell meant that if there were to be a fire, residents would have been unlikely to have been unable to see their way out of the building. We have also seen pictures that residents have shared with us of the orange alarm lights which should kick in in an emergency hanging off the wall.
Exposed carpet runners were also at the top of the stairs, with nails sticking up. This is a hazard at the best of times, but particularly dangerous in a rush.
With the Fire Brigade’s involvement, the landlord was instructed to install a person as a waking watch – to patrol the building and detect and respond to incidents which could be hazardous – which they did. Unfortunately it seems the waking watch may have failed.
In addition, we are told that over the weekend of 25th April, a 24 hour security guard was brought into the building, with two people covering two twelve hour shifts from this date onwards.
This having been put in place, the wonder is how the building was suddenly deemed to be unsafe on the 8th of May. What had become worse on that day that was any different from the week before, the month before or two years ago?
Access to mail
The letterboxes in the bottom of the building each had doors which were hanging off, unlockable and insecure. Around 8th April, all of the post boxes were removed, and Royal Mail was instructed to stop delivering post to the building. With pressure from the residents, this was reinstated after around two-three weeks.
Deliberate cutting of wires relating to TV and internet services
Residents report that the phone and broadband lines in the property were deliberately cut by the landlord. Once the building had been fire checked, the holes to the lines were filled in under the landlord’s instructions. Residents called in companies to reinstate their connections (which they were/are still paying for), but they were unable to redrill through the firewalls without the landlord’s permission. It’s reported that the landlord did not respond to these requests.
Basic utilities
Residents reported that sewerage was backing up into their properties’ sinks and washing machines, and intermittently found that their water and some people have reported that their electricity was switched off.
Under their previous arrangement, residents had been paying their water bills within their rent. Out of the blue, they were presented with a water bill.
No cleaning of communal areas
This is reported to have stopped in January.
Lift unsafe and not working
An ongoing issue was the lift not working, and there has been flooding in the bottom of the building which led to the lift shaft filling with water. When the lift was working, residents would find that it had stopped a good half a meter above the floor.
Lack of clarity over landlord and tenancy
We will release a separate blog on this, but the lack of clarity over landlord and tenancy has caused considerable stress and inconvenience to residents, who have been trying to resolve issues and pay rent, and not known who to turn to.
Rent increases by a third
In April, residents were instructed they would need to leave by in June, otherwise they would be issued with a Section 21 eviction. Their last rental payment would also increase by a third.
“The landlord wants us to leave”
This is from a conversation with a resident at the beginning of April.
“The new building owners took the building on sight unseen, and had no idea of the issues. We think they have set up a separate company just to deal with Redstone House, so that they do not get any come back on them. People have been told they want us out at the beginning of May. They’ve offered us £1,000 to leave but this is our home. Where would we go? That doesn’t even cover a deposit, elsewhere. They’ve said they’ll send us to Basildon or Luton. Our life is here. This is our home.
“Another family went to a funeral and came home to find that they’ve had the locks to their flat changed. The landlord said they thought they’d left. The person they’ve put in for the wake and watch has said they’ll try to get us to leave, one way or the other, and has been going to the police station to report things to try and build a case to empty the place.
“I don’t want to cause a fuss because I want somewhere to live but this isn’t right. It’s 2025. How can people be living like this and this is ok? Why won’t anyone help us? We’ve been to the police and they say it’s a civil matter. The least we deserve is compensation for our living conditions and certainty on where we’ll be living.”
Our concluding thoughts
When it comes to permitted developments in Harlow, it seems they are not much more than an inconvenient truth.
For a town that was created to enable people to escape the squalor, smoke and rubble following the war, it seems that permitted development properties are fine as long as you can’t see rubble and smoke.
Residents desperately need (and we would say deserve) compensation. This is well past time. We are told that Chris Vince MP has been in touch with residents over the past few weeks. We would like to urge Chris Vince MP and Cllr Dan Swords to meet with residents and use all available power to put punishments in with the landlord, so that people have the financial compensation they need to find somewhere new to get on with their lives.