Barnet Council faces dilemma over deteriorating state of condemned blocks of flats at Dollis Valley Estate

Vandalised blocks of flats and maisonettes awaiting demolition are likely to remain an eyesore for months to come following the sudden and unexpected collapse of a deal previously approved by Barnet Council to complete the regeneration of the Dollis Valley Estate.

Homes which were condemned as unfit some years ago were about to be replaced by developers Vistry under a scheme which had qualified for a £58.85 million grant from the Greater London Authority.

In a rarely used procedure Barnet’s Conservative councillors called in the agreement on the grounds it lacked “financial sustainability” – a process which halted the deal and resulted in the loss of the GLA grant.

Barry Rawlings, Labour leader of the council, told the Barnet Society that it would be early next year or even later before it would be possible to come up with an alternative scheme.

In the meantime, the council faces a dilemma. The cost of demolishing the flats and maisonettes, which was due to start in September, could be as high as £3 million – money which Councillor Rawlings said the council had not budgeted for.

The only alternative might be to fence off the whole site with secure hoardings to prevent access and deter further vandalism.

Given the presence of squatters in some of empty flats and the general state of decay – with large pools of stagnant water formed by leaking pipes and mains – the owners of nearby houses on what is now the Brook Valley Gardens estate say they should not have to put up with such gruesome dereliction.

Conservative group leader Councillor Peter Zinkin recognised that the cost of securing the abandoned blocks of flats was high, but he thought the council probably had no option but to wait for the housing market to improve.

His preferred course of action – one backed by a Brook Valley Gardens residents’ group – was for the council to return to the original proposal to finish off the Dollis Valley regeneration with 126 new privately-owned and 95 affordable homes.

When Vistry declared this scheme was unviable, the council negotiated a fresh agreement with the developers to complete the regeneration with 208 new affordable homes, a deal which qualified for the £58.85 million GLA grant towards the cost of new affordable housing.

Once the renegotiated deal was called in by the Conservatives on the grounds it lacked “financial responsibility” the council was unable to meet the GLA’s deadline of Friday 31 July for approving the project and the offer of a grant was withdrawn.

A hurriedly arranged meeting was held on Tuesday 4 August at which a group of residents and the Barnet Society were excluded on the grounds that issues regarding the “financial responsibility and financial sustainability” of the council’s agreement with Vistry had to be discussed in private.

This was the first time for 14 years that the call-in procedure had been triggered and the Conservatives’ action was defended by Councillor Zinkin.

He said it was “really important” for the opposition to test whether the council’s cabinet had taken the “correct decision” in approving the Vistry deal.

In a note setting out their case, the Conservatives said the Vistry group was under severe financial strain, and they considered the cabinet meeting had not been provided with “sufficient assurance as to the financial viability and delivery risk” for the scale of the commitment.

Councillor Zinkin’s action in calling in the deal was supported by Peter Esposito who was allowed to ask questions on behalf of residents who were opposed to the latest Vistry scheme and who believed those who had purchased new houses had been misled about the GLA funding for the scheme.

These residents were against the Vistry agreement because it abandoned the original undertaking that 60 per cent of the new homes in the Dollis Valley regeneration would be privately owned with only 40 per cent available for social rent.

By switching the completion of phases 4 and 5 to the construction of 208 affordable homes, the balance would be reversed with only 40 per cent of the houses on the estate remaining privately owned, a proportion which they argued would make it more difficult to obtain mortgages and could depress the value of their properties.

The Dollis Valley estate was built in the 1960s and 1970s and Barnet Council acknowledges that the five-storey blocks of flats and maisonettes suffered from many of the problems such as dampness and condensation which affect post-war estates.

The first three phases of the regeneration, with the construction of 408 homes of mixed tenure, was completed in 2023 but the council has been dogged with problems over agreeing a scheme to build the final 208 new homes.

The deal agreed with Vistry to build 187 homes for social rent and 21 for key workers for living rent – to be managed by Barnet Homes – was described by the council as the “only one viable option”.

Councillor Rawlings told the call-in meeting which probed the collapse of the deal that he did not think the issues raised in the scrutiny process did “materially affect the decision which was made”.

After the meeting he said he feared yet another delay in completing the Dollis Valley regeneration would create more uncertainty for those residents who had been moved out of their “unsafe and leaking flats” and transferred to other temporary council accommodation.

“These residents had been forgotten in all of this. When they were moved away, they were promised they would get a chance to move back to Dollis Valley.”

He said that the first three phases of the regeneration – and the creation of the new Brook Valley Gardens estate with 400 new homes – had been a success.

“Years back people used to say that Dollis Valley was a no-go estate, but the area has been transformed, and we are anxious to see that regeneration completed.”