Simon Lee, secretary of Hastings Area Southern Housing Tenants’ Association, describes the chaos unfolding as Southern Housing repair Bevin Court so it can be demolished.
Shirley lives a quiet life on the tenth floor. She loves her neighbours and often has her meals with Jennifer and Brian who live a few floors lower. Their support for her has been continuous since the day she moved in – constant and indeed mutual. It would be hard to find a more loving and supportive relationship outside of family ties.
She has lived here for eighteen years and is full of life with many stories to share! Of course, she’s had her quota of challenges in her 83 years, but this latest is not at all welcomed. Suddenly, a few months ago, Southern Housing announced their intention to demolish her home, Bevin Court in Hollington, Hastings.
Now she faces an uncertain future with no idea of where she will end up living, or if she will still be near her friends.
Jennifer and Brian are in the same boat. They have lived here for almost seven years and it’s their collective energy that keeps many of the social events in the Four Courts alive. They know everyone and everyone knows them – they were instrumental in getting the initial tenants group running long before HASHTA (Hasting Area Southern Housing Tenants Association) was started. They know there are problems with living in these blocks and they would prefer to live somewhere more amenable. But they too will miss the community they have helped to build and be sad to see it go. They hope for better living conditions but also share the anger that this whole enterprise is ill-judged and mismanaged.
It’s simply shocking how little consideration there is for our basic right of self-determination. Two of the blocks destined for demolition are designated as ‘independent living’ schemes but independence seems to come at a high price – I don’t ever recall agreeing to the destruction of our homes. Where was the consultation? Where was the ballot we are entitled to?
If the imminent loss of home wasn’t enough to contend with, Southern Housing (SH) are carrying out extensive building works here, on a property they’re apparently demolishing next year. This future remains shrouded in doubt, very much like the netting and scaffolding that now encompasses our homes: it’s not enough that we are being kicked out of our flats, SH has decided to remove the cladding from Bevin Court which now has five floors covered in scaffolding and plastic netting and will soon be completely enveloped by it.
In December 2023 cladding fell from the west face of the building and a further fall from the same wall occurred in 2024 with a larger section of the cladding dropping to the ground. Now this sudden urgent need to remove all the cladding for unspecified reasons comes at a time when people are already highly anxious. No-one here wants it.
So now Bevin Court residents face an entire summer shrouded in plastic and semi-darkness, with the constant noise of a building site, the dust, the drilling and cutting tools. Not to mention the unrelenting shouting and calling from the teams of workers and scaffolders. Our entrance is now part of the building site, no place for our many residents with poor vision and limited mobility. All this while we prepare for an unknown future in an unknown location, without the comfort of our friends and the familiarity of our neighbourhood.
The works have added an exquisite layer of torture to our situation here and moving has become a desperate race amongst us to get out. Most want to escape the noise, dirt and chaos we are being forced to co-exist with.
Why was SH allowed to let this building work go ahead? Why are frail, ill and disabled residents being subjected to all this? Building inspections should have picked up on the health and safety concerns if they were so critical that our lives had to be disrupted to this extent.
We have consistently asked to see the fire and safety records of the building so that we can understand why this decision was taken given the frailty and age of many residents. We have yet to see a quantifiable explanation. Instead, we are fobbed off with vague, unstructured and unspecified ‘fire and safety risks.’ This is not good enough.
There appears to be no scrutiny or qualification performed by SH or anyone else for that matter. Where are the measures of project performance? It was only recently that we were told that SH were making improvements and actively addressing the issues of the lifts, windows and anti-social behaviour. When we started our tenants’ group last September we were promised a voice, that SH would invite us to discuss our concerns and would openly work with us. This was a lie. They had no intention of working alongside tenants. We ask uncomfortable questions of SH and they are unable to meet us on an equal footing. Why?
This should be an opportunity for SH to demonstrate their commitment to open communications with tenants’ groups. But instead, they have opted to deny us a voice and apparently don’t have the time or inclination to participate in the Hastings Council Housing Strategy.
This morning, I met Shirley coming out of Bevin Court. She uses a walker and must navigate around the workmen as they arrive with more scaffolding poles. The back door was barred so she had no choice but to use the main entrance which is now severely restricted. She is visibly anxious, and the noise is intense, radios blaring, men shouting, lorries reversing. By the time we managed to get to the bus stop she was almost in tears. How is any of this acceptable?
SH must understand that people, especially elderly, disabled and disadvantaged people have a right to peace and honesty and dignity where their lives are concerned.
Later that day, she joined other tenants who were sharing their feelings at a regular tenants’ meeting. The mood is grim. People talk openly of their fears, their anger, the impact on their health, particularly their mental health. Several tenants talk of clinical depression and suicide. I don’t imagine SH has any idea of what is going on behind the closed doors of Bevin Court – if they did they would see a community close to breaking. The two resettlement officers, despite their best efforts, can do little to alleviate the suffering and pain that pervades our homes.