Chris Ward MP: Tough Christmas at Havenside Court

Sadly, though, not everyone had a restful Christmas – and in particular, I have in mind my constituents in Havenside Court, Telscombe, who endured over eight weeks without gas in the run-up to Christmas. This caused huge disruption, inconvenience, and distress (not to mention additional costs) for those affected, including a number of vulnerable residents.The situation worsened as First Port, the managing agent responsible for the maintenance of Havenside Court, is now proposing to charge residents an astonishing £53,000 for the repairs. Despite numerous attempts by my office and residents to engage with First Port to discuss a fair and swift resolution, their response has been completely inadequate – adding insult to injury for residents.

I’ve been working with local councillors and residents on this issue for the last few months and am now exploring all possible avenues to ensure that residents don’t have to pay the exorbitant costs being demanded by the management company.

Worse still, this fiasco at Havenside is not an isolated case. In fact, it underlines a wider failure that I see too many examples of in my constituency – the failure of many housing management agents to treat residents fairly and with the dignity and decency they deserve. In recent months, I’ve seen this issue come up time and again in my constituency surgeries, from Kemptown to Peacehaven and Telscombe.So this year, along with the much wider changes we need to tackle the housing crisis in our constituency, I’ll be pushing for stronger legal protections for residents against this kind of abuse from management agents.