By Emma Dent Coad
Back in the dim mists of time, the residents of Wornington Green were involved in selecting contractors for the first phase of the unwanted development of their homes. Small recompense, but the winners Mansells seemed to be decent, straightforward and said they would work with the community – and so they did.
Once the first phase of demolition was over, however – and this is where fact and rumour meld – Mansells were allegedly thrown unceremonially off the site one day and new contractor Ardmore brought in.
Whether this was due, as some said, to the new lot dropping the price by £10m or not, we have no idea. Rumours continue to abound.
There has been a lot of debate about the quality of the old buildings in relation to their maintenance, to the design of the new buildings in relation to what they could have achieved, and about who genuinely wanted what, and why.
Let’s just say, the money won.
But here is a chilling and undeniable fact. The first original residents have moved in. I went to see how their new buildings were treating them. I was horrified. Here’s why.
- the reality:
Mismatched door mystery
Wibbly wobbly windows
Detailing disasters
Wibbly wobbly doors
Broken pretend stone
Cladding catastrophe
Glue gun terror
More glue gun terror
We were forced to accept a banal and compromised design, but how anyone can get away with such appalling build quality is simply beyond me; as far as the woodwork is concerned I've seen better sheds built with scrap. Have the overseas buyers of the private homes seen what they are buying for their £ms?
Not a shed made of scraps ...
This is the £1m Show House; note window frame
Note peeling paint, dodgy window frames
PRIZE PICTURE: NOTE VERTICALS ARE NOT VERTICAL
Now we are informed that ‘social’ housing provider Catalyst wish to speed up the next stage ‘so that residents can move into their new homes more quickly’. Such a degree of philanthropy seems extremely unlikely so we will leave the real reason to conjecture.
And we will just have to hope the first phase (which we hear has been subject to leaks) doesn’t fall down before the second phase is built.
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