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Barking Reach Residents Association was out conducting a survey of heating and hot water issues. As we walked into the pleasant grounds of Robert Lewis House on the Barking Riverside estate, east London, we met a young woman pushing a pram.

She told us that in the four years of living there, she has never had heating or hot water – the second person in this block of flats we’ve met who has suffered this.

She has mould on the walls, she tells us. The flats are run by London and Quadrant (L&Q) housing association.

Meanwhile, angry residents of Ernest Websdale House, whose landlords are Adriatic, were without hot water for two weeks. They had to pay to investigate and fix the issue, yet the landlord appeared to be responsible.

We’ve drawn up a 3,000 word protest. We demand compensation for their expenditure, and the cost of immersion heating for hot water. We demand that, at the landlord’s cost, engineers should make appointments to visit each flat in this relatively new-build estate, and test and make good all flats for heating and hot water.

We call for L&Q to investigate the need for an extra boiler in Robert Lewis House because the flats are widely reported to be cold in winter.

And we ask: What assets does overall landlord Barking Riverside Limited have? The finished estate was planned to have a majority of elected residents on the company board running the estate, and we say they should be given access to this information now, so the assets can be used to solve this horrendous situation.

Pete Mason, Barking Reach Residents Association