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When it rains, Dionne* can feel water coming through her bedroom wall. “I touch it and I can literally feel the water soaking from outside to inside,” she said.
Dionne has lived in a two-bedroom flat on the Loughborough Estate in south London since 2010 and has complained about mould to the organisation which manages the estate since 2018.
After several requests for help, Loughborough Estate Management Board (LEMB) sent someone to do a mould wash and paint the wall, which Dionne does regularly herself because the mould often returns. It has not solved the problem. “I wake up in the middle of the night coughing and I can’t go back to sleep because the smell is so strong,” she said.
Dionne is one of a number of residents who told the Observer of their concerns that LEMB’s mismanagement had left the estate of more than 1,000 properties in disarray, with damp, vermin infestations and a raw sewage spill not being adequately addressed.
An Observer investigation has found that in the year to March 2024, LEMB wrote off about £375,000 on “celebration gifts” for residents and spent £46,000 on a foreign trip for board members. It named one of the estate’s community centres after its chair, while another is being rented by a cargo company. LEMB, which described the chair in one of its magazines as its “rock of ages”, has also accused Lambeth council of trying to murder him – an allegation the authority dismisses as false.
Loughborough Estate is a sprawling postwar site near Brixton in south London. A three-bed flat on the estate can sell for up to £400,000, and 255 private leaseholders pay up to £1,800 a year in service charges to LEMB, while 969 of the properties are for council tenants. The landlord is Lambeth council, but since 1995 LEMB has been the tenant management organisation (TMO) tasked with undertaking day-to-day maintenance and repairs.
TMOs were set up in England and Wales in the 1970s to allow residents to manage their housing through local, volunteer-led grassroots organisations. Right to Manage regulations introduced in 1994 allowed TMOs to also take charge of repairs, maintenance and rent collection. However, some TMOs have been criticised by residents for mismanagement. The campaign group NoTMO compiles lists of what they call “rogue” organisations that they believe have been negligent or misused their power. The Grenfell inquiry report published in September found that the tower’s TMO, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, was “a bullying overlord”.
Helen Hayes, the local MP for the Loughborough Estate, says she receives a high number of complaints about LEMB’s management and is calling for “proper accountability” for all TMOs in the UK.
When the Observer visited the Loughborough Estate last month, there were at least 10 fridges left in a corner of the site. A slide in a nearby play area for children was broken. Resident Leah*, who has a seven-year-old daughter, said that last winter there was a sewage leak near the play area.
Nagema Adair, who has lived on the estate for 22 years and says she has experienced mould for the past five, said she had given up complaining to LEMB. “You already feel on the bottom because you’re on an estate, you’re in a council house, and to be treated like this makes you even more down. You just feel neglected. You feel that you’re not worth it.”
LEMB has a £3m annual budget and, according to annual financial accounts to March 2024, it wrote off £374,151 of “costs in relation to celebration gifts for residents which will be distributed in the coming years”, and a further £46,390 on a trip abroad “during which time they considered a number of issues impacting LEMB”.
LEMB raises additional income by collecting rents from the hire of two onsiteonsite community centres. However, when the Observer visited what is advertised on LEMB’s website as Community Centre 1, it displayed signage for a Nigerian-based cargo firm. Six blue oil drums appeared to be being stored inside the centre.
Records at Companies House show at least two British companies registered at this address: KJ Cargo/Shipping – which is described on one of its websites as “one of the UK’s most reputable and highly respected International Freight Forwarding company” and on its Nigerian website as a “wholly owned Nigerian company, with global reach” – and MMAC Energy, which says on its website that it works on “economic recovery and sustainability of Nigeria’s oil and gas resources”. Neither company responded when approached by the Observer for comment.
A spokesperson for Lambeth council said they were “extremely concerned” about the reports of oil barrels. “These were immediately reported to the fire brigade,” they said. “We are seeking answers on why they were stored there in the first place and we are investigating the community centre’s use.”
London fire brigade confirmed that it had undertaken a full inspection of the site and that the barrels had been removed by the time they arrived.
The other centre, the Peter Shorinwa Community Centre, is named after LEMB’s chair. Shorinwa became chair of LEMB in 2011, and LEMB refers to him in its 25th anniversary magazine as the “Rt Hon”, describing him as “an able Leader and Fearless. LEMB’s rock of ages”.
Disagreements between LEMB and Lambeth council date back to 2012, when Lambeth council removed LEMB’s control of the estate due to concerns over its finances as well as several alleged breaches of the management agreement. LEMB denied these allegations, and when arbitration concluded with a settlement in 2015, residents voted for it to return. All management responsibility was restored to LEMB in 2016.
In 2019, Shorinwa was found not guilty at Inner London crown court after being charged with fraud following allegations by Lambeth council.
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The anniversary magazine, published by LEMB in 2021, details several extraordinary allegations against Lambeth council, including that it tried to kill Shorinwa. “Lambeth prepared to take a life … Lambeth decided to end [Shorinwa’s] life by running him over with a van laying ambush … while he was ridding home [sic]”, the magazine reads. A spokesperson for the council said: “These criminal allegations against the council are completely false claims, and we are concerned that they are being made.”
Some residents are now seeking to oust LEMB. Tim Gingell, who has lived on the estate for more than 30 years, runs a WhatsApp group with more than 100 members called Loughborough Voices, many of whom want to remove LEMB as managers of the estate. A continuation ballot, where residents can vote to keep the current TMO or return responsibilities to the council, is overdue. “We want to start a completely new TMO,” Gingell said from his eighth-floor flat. “We want a resident-led, transparent approach.”
In the meantime, Gingell is collecting evidence of maintenance issues on the estate. Images on the WhatsApp group include footage that appears to show sewage backing up to the brim of a resident’s bathtub.
Last February, Shorinwa sent a letter to all residents accusing Loughborough Voices of “degrading our estate” and “trying to create pandemonium and dissatisfaction”. The letter also says: “anti-social behaviour will be met with strong resistance … your identities are known so stop now … before it is too late.” In a letter sent to all residents in October, Shorinwa accused Loughborough Voices of “unhealthy, unacceptable, unbecoming, self-seeking and anti-social behaviour”.
Gingell and other Loughborough Voices organisers have also been sent a cease and desist letter by LEMB’s lawyers, who accuse the group of “illegal and disruptive behaviours”. Gingell said: “My head is so far above the parapet I can’t really turn back. And I’m not really afraid of LEMB.”
A Lambeth council spokesperson told the Observer that it was aware of residents’ concerns and was taking action through site visits and performance monitoring as well as “meeting the residents and highlighting their concerns with the LEMB in a bid to get them resolved”. It added: “We will continue to push for improved performance from the LEMB.”
Hayes, the local MP, says she receives “a high number of complaints from residents on the Loughborough Estate relative to its size”. She added: “Residents have told me that they are sometimes reluctant to report problems because of how they will be treated. Communication from LEMB is variable – sometimes issues are addressed but I have also received correspondence which is rude and defensive.
“It is important that there is proper accountability for all TMOs for the services they provide to residents, in the same way as councils and housing associations are accountable for the services they provide.”
Shorinwa and LEMB did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
* Some names have been changed
