Are Basildon Council taking the piss out of their tenants?

Residents of the iconic Brooke House block in the middle of Basildon town centre recently received a letter from the council demanding that doormats outside the front doors of their flats be removed. The council claim this is for safety reasons.

Understandably, many residents in Brooke House are fuming over this. The state of the communal areas in the block leaves a lot to be desired. This ranges from a basement area that floods, stairwells with leaking windows that lead to slippery stairs, pigeon shit in parts of the block with access to the outside plus the various deposits left on floors and in lifts by a small minority of anti-social tenants. Residents rightly state that they do not want to tread the muck picked up from the communal areas into their flats. They also say that the council need to do their job in ensuring a decent level of cleanliness in the block before lecturing and threatening the decent majority of tenants.

As things stand at the moment, there’s a stand off between residents and Basildon Council. The local ward councillor, Cllr. David Burton-Sampson has been contacted by residents fed up with the bullying, patronising attitude of the council. It remains to be seen whether Cllr. Burton-Sampson can exert enough pressure on the council to take a more constructive approach in dealing with their tenants in Brooke House.

This is far from the first time Basildon Council have behaved in an arrogant, belittling manner towards their tenants. Regardless of the political composition of the council, there’s an attitude problem shared by a number of their public facing officers that needs to be addressed. There’s only so much people can take before they start to kick back – could it be that we’re reaching that point?