‘They see us as the enemy’

Tom Watling hears from fearful residents battling to save an award-winning social housing estate now crumbling from neglect overseen by the Labour-run Westminster Council

- Tom Watling

When 73-year-old pensioner Pat Findley moved into Lillington and Longmoore Gardens before the turn of the millennium, she was ecstatic.

The 1970s grade-II listed estate in Pimlico, with around 1,000 homes, was an award-winning complex boasting “beautiful” brutalist architecture and a quaint garden room at its centre. The council was attentive; the community was close-knit.

But fast forward three decades, and Ms Findley says she feels like she’s “at war”.

In the past year, roofs have collapsed, flats have flooded, residents have been hospitalised by scalding or “contaminated” water, and sewage pipes have burst, causing the smell of faeces to permeate through the estate. Ms Findley says there is a new issue “every three months”. Her own flat is infested with woodlice.

Families have been evacuated, and residents have been left sleep-deprived and struggling to work after failed attempts to fix leaks and persistent mould.

A recent freedom of information request found that the estate needed 2,086 plumbing repairs between January 2020 and March 2025. The estate has since been nicknamed “leaky Lillington”.

Leaseholders, nevertheless, have seen their maintenance bills skyrocket, as they foot half the costs of the council’s decisions.

But Westminster Council, she says, which owns and manages the estate, is stubborn in the face of the residents’ complaints. One leaseholder, who asked to be anonymous out of fear for reprisal from the council, put it plainly: “The council see us as the enemy.”