People living in an 18-storey tower block want the authorities to deal with drug dealing and anti-social behaviour after a fire started in the early hours in a “problematic flat”.
Residents’ association chair Georgina Parke said that the high-rise block, Theobald House, was “the city pharmacy” and that families had to step over people doing drugs.
She also said that Brighton and Hove City Council was failing to carry out repairs despite repeated requests.
Ms Parke called for better security at the flats, in Blackman Street, Brighton, when she addressed the council’s Housing and New Homes Committee on Wednesday (13 March).
She asked what it would take to have a 24-7 on-the-door concierge and a building manager, adding: “We’re the city pharmacy.”
Ms Parke said that residents were left facing the “the chaos of anti-social behaviour that’s not been dealt with multiple times”.
She said: “(There have been) multiple failures of reporting and being able to report (issues) safely.
“We’ve got kids. Many families now are stepping over people doing drugs and stuff on the side.”
The issues had been raised at the past 20 residents’ association meetings, she said, adding: “It seems we actually need somebody on site going around this building checking for repairs.
“I’ve checked the caretaker’s key roles. He’s got too much work and it’s not within his roles to keep chasing up repairs that have been reported.
“If you report a repair and it doesn’t get done in a certain time, it’s deleted off the system.
“We’ve got pigeons living in the roof and the internal part of the premises.
“I’ve put in at least three or four repairs and the last time I phoned up to check them they weren’t on the system because they’d not been actioned. They’d been removed.”
Ms Parke said that she was not the building manager but had a job although she tried to support her neighbours.
She also asked for an updated tenants handbook, with details on fire safety, after a fire started in the early hours of Sunday 18 February.
Labour councillor Gill Williams, who chairs the council’s Housing and New Homes Committee, offered to look into the repairs issue personally, as did the council’s assistant director for housing Martin Reid.
Councillor Williams told the committee at Hove Town Hall: “We will be investing significantly in Theobald House over the next two years. The planning will be taken forward in consultation with tenants and leaseholders.
“I do appreciate and I am aware of what has happened with the fire and how this has significantly impacted on residents and how frightened they must have been at this time.
“I do think this is an opportune time to have a look at all of these issues.”
Councillors have approved a budget of £5 million for “major works” at Theobald House in the coming financial year, starting next month. A further £2.45 million has been provisionally allocated for 2025-26.
Mr Reid said that a residents’ meeting was due to take place next week with officers from the housing department and representatives from East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service.
If they need to spend £5m on this building now and +£2m later you have to ask that the h€ll has been going on for all these years… If it were a private block I’m sure ‘enforcement notices’ and other legally required changes would have been forced upon the owners by the council and police. Seems its not applicable if its council owned!
round the dealers and the junkies up
The Police are scared of them . Just walk along western road you see open drug dealing and taking. Addicts begging for money. Then the police clamp down on well run bars and clubs etc if a swap is positive. Its impossible to keep drugs out if the Police ignore the dealers.
Incredibly dangerous having drug addicts in a building like this. Many use open flames to melt the drugs so they can inject and then drop the flame source. The council should insist on building and housing addicts in out of town purpose built accommodation. A flat in the centre of town costs a fortune so there is no reason this couldn’t be done in a much cheaper location. The number of addicts in the town centre is also now damaging the tourist industry as Brighton is getting a reputation of turning into a dump when they see addicts like I did last week shooting up in New Steine and on western road or fighting in the shopping centre and harassing tourists for their money for their next fix.
Open flames. You mean a lighter.
Junkie paradise,, rent free
Junkie paradise,,, rent free
And still we build more high-rise dwellings.
I don’t think the junkies care at what level they operate, housing estates without multis have the same problems, depends who’s writing and editing the current headlines defines what we get to read, mostly
On the Wellington road estate it is no better there.
Many people have complained for years about stepping over people slamming in the bin room,or on landings in Johnson Bank Barclay house and Napier house.Known drug dealers never seem to get action taken against them,the stress on law abiding tenants against all the drug fuelled parties coming and goings,tail gating to into properties all gets forgotten even when reported constantly.
Free accommodation for drug dealing users and sellers.
It’s not just high rise blocks that have problems with nightmare neighbours. It seems we’re not protected, even though the council are aware there’s an issue. We have to get evidence, and if someone does it covertly, then there’s no chance. I’ve got a short video of someone driving on the pavement trying to intimidate my 79 year old husband. Although this person parks on the pavement, he’s overshot where he usually parks by a further 2 cars. To me, it’s clearly intimidation, not just a parking issue. I reported this to the police online on 27th Jan. Nothing’s come of it.
Use a brick. That solves most problems.
I’ve challenged council on ASB a few times now. In my opinion, the ratio between ASB reports and evictions due to ASB is very low. There’s enough accounts of people having trouble with severe ongoing ASB to discount the possibility that mediation has been overwhelmingly successful.
No, I think I would like to see a rougher stance on ASB in council tenants. This oversubscribed privilege would not notice the loss of a few bad eggs.
My thoughts on that particular matter, anyway.
I asked both our scheme manager and the department that deals with ASB’s to issue this person an ASB. They will only intervene depending on police outcome. I can see it’s intimidation. This person does things covertly, hence no one else is interested. His latest thing is watching my husband when he’s outside, ok not every day. All they might say it’s not a crime. My husband was looking in his boot, there was a really loud noise, with the intensions that my husband would jump up and bang his head. There is a long list of what this person’s done, and the council are aware of it, but it doesn’t amount to much.
They might indeed say it is not a crime, because it’s not a crime.
Driving on the pavement towards someone with the intent to intimidate someone surely can’t be right.
I don’t live in this block but I live in something similar.
I’ve been brought up to be a decent, law abiding citizen. I’ve worked hard and yet not gained a thing from working hard except living on virtual poverty wages for decades and I’ve ended up in social housing, though when I think about it, I never really left it!
I’ve fought and dragged myself up tirelessly in the hope of escaping the poverty trap. I’ve retrained continuously when facing changing markets and it’s needs. Yet all I faced was continuous P45’s and redundancy!
And as I reach retirement, I know I will probably end up dying of old age in this mould infested flat on a drug and drink infested estate!
My housing association landlord knows their properties have a serious problem with mould. My flat is no different.
I’m told by my housing association landlord, to put the heating on all the time and keep the windows open all the time as if I’m a multi millionaire who’s got money to burn and who then tells me to keep the windows closed and seal all the vents and suffocate in the hot sunmers so I don’t have to breathe in the foulest of stench from my neighbours smoking marijuana all day and all night as well as their tobacco????
Sure, my anti social neighbours might end up leaving or end up dying from their drink and drug or pot smoking lives.
But there’s little hope of knowing I might just finally find peace and harmony in my latter years because I know that the new tenant will be just as bad or even worse!
And that’s the problem with Brighton and it’s Housing Associations and the Council!
There’s a tolerance and ambiguity towards the anti-social elements and a intolerance and indifference towards the decent and what appears to be a silent minority!
They once called housing estates ghetto estates.
Councils and Housing Associations apathy have now turned whole towns and cities into ghettos!
And it seems that the only way out for the decent minority, is via the cemeteries and crematorium that seem to be their only escape!
Reading this makes me feel so sad and ashamed. You sound like a very decent person who deserves so much better. I sincerely wish you well and hope you find peace and comfort as you approach retirement 🙏
This is what is so wrong with the council. Other councils deliberately house people with drug addiction issues outside the town centre in facilities that have support to help them manage their addiction problem. No council just puts them into town centre blocks like this. These kinds of blocks should be reserved for people like you so they are not horror homes but places where decent people can live safely.
Other councils don’t do this at all. You’re making stuff up again, same on Facebook.
However, on the spirit of your comment, people in sensitive lets do seem to attract a lot of ASB, and dealers will mark properties as such, as there’s likely repeat business for them there. Speaking of services, CGL and the like are all situated in the centre of town, so on that count, maybe they are.doing what you are suggesting.
However the NIMBY argument isn’t a great one. You’ve got to look at the reasons for increased drug usage in the population. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of reasons that aren’t quick fixes or simply not in the power of the council to change.
It’s a rough, but not unfamiliar story. I agree with your statement about the tolerance of the council. I think there is room for mediation in the first instance, and it is right to do so, however the council must be prepared to take the next steps and ultimately evict people if that fails. As it stands, I do not believe they are.
I so agree with Simon and would love to meet up not sure how I can pass my details to you?
I have experienced exactly the same since moving into SHG housing association.
Has steadily got worse and they know nobody cares.
Brighton is now hell the housing manager informs me if I’m not satisfied, I can leave but I can not afford to go back into private sector and where should I go?
Hove was where I was born and for many years happy. I was treated like a total low life by SHG and so called various professionals.
If you dare to raise any concerns about abusive neighbors, drugs and non repairs, you are informed immediately that you must have mental health issues!!!
When I lived there it was awful .you would have the drug addicts getting in the lift and blowing heroin smoke in your face and blood dripping down there arms were they had tryed to shoot up and the stairwell was always dirty with left over drug equipment and even human poo on the stairwell .I also feel for the cleaner he trys so hard to keep the lift and stairwells clean and his always cleaning but just as he cleans the addicts are back again causing more mess .
We did have downstairs security for a bit and that seemed to help but they stopped that .
It’s not nice for the kids and families to have to walk into this everyday .
Sure social services wouldn’t be impressed .
The social services don’t care they blame you for being an unfit mother, if you don’t live on the right side of the park, own your home and have a Walton’s family.
Hey ho it’s your fault believe me Brighton social services is a cash machine service only the word care is not in their vocabulary.
The moment the fragrant Lucazoid declared we are the city of refuge, every nerdowell made a b line for the place. We are now reaping green stupidity.