People living in Hillcrest Road estate have been let down again by Haringey council and Homes for Haringey, as important repairs to their homes have been cancelled because of a legal error. The news comes after families on the estate suffered weeks of delays in vital repairs to their lifts.

Tenants were promised that their flats would be brought up to the Government’s minimum standard for “decent homes”, but because of the mistake no suitable contractor was found to do the improvements. While homes in the east of the borough will benefit from a programme of upgrades in 2013, residents in Hillcrest will have to wait until 2014, when a grant of £25m from the Conservative-led coalition government will allow the work finally to take place.

Kay Carter, above, a Conservative candidate for Highgate, says: “All councillors must take responsibility for this disaster, and make changes to the way the council is run to make sure mistakes like this never happen in the future. The need for upgrading of homes in Highgate is urgent, and it is simply unacceptable that tenants will miss out because of an avoidable error.”

Highgate Conservatives have written to the council asking for a full investigation into what went wrong, and demanding steps be taken to ensure better decision-making procedures for the future.