Betrayed by East Kent Housing

Arthur is 86. He has served in our armed forces and has been betrayed by one of his ward Cllrs, by Cllr Alan Ewart- James Cabinet member for Housing (pictured below left), by Damian Collins MP (below right), Deborah Upton Chief Exec of East Kent Housing, Mark Anderson Director of Property East Kent Housing and Matt Gough Director of Customer Services East Kent Housing.

Arthur is just out of hospital and suffers from some life threatening illnesses. He lives in Hythe in a council flat. East Kent Housing contractors attended Arthur’s flat over a year ago and bashed his bathroom to “buggery” and then left because they did not know the best way forward to resolve the issues. Since then Arthur has been without a fully functioning bathroom, without a working toilet, or a functioning bath or shower. Arthur is forced to use the sink to keep himself clean. When his uses the “throne” he has to tip a bucket of water down it and then use a plunger, to remove the waste.

As we said at the beginning, he has contacted one of his ward Cllrs and Damian Collins MP, but a year on NOTHING has been done for Arthur. He is and continues to be failed by the system which is meant to care for him.

All too recently a grandmother died hours after being found ‘frozen’ in her council home when East Kent Housing failed to fix her central heating in time for Christmas. EKH’s director of property services, Mark Anderson, said: “My review has concluded that there are lessons to be learned.” Do remember people Mark Anderson (Centre) Director of Property at EKH, previously worked as the Interim Executive Director of Assets & Regeneration at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO). He was directly involved with the issues around the cladding on Grenfell Tower (page17) and the lessons to be learned from that Tradegy are still being dealt with by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

It is we believe time to move Deborah Upton Chief Executive (left), Mark Anderson Director of Property (centre) and Matt Gough Director of Customer services (right) of East Kent Housing onto pastures new. They have failed and continue to fail the tenants they serve across the portfolio of 17,000 plus council homes in East Kent.

We hope and pray that Arthur’s bathroom is sorted out before the onset of winter and we are sure there are competent Cllrs who can and will achieve this for Arthur.

The Shepwayvox Team Journalism for the People NOT the powerful