Latest news with #LeasideLock
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Climate
- The Guardian
‘Do not buy these flats': residents warn about unbearable heat inside London new-builds
The sweltering conditions inside Leaside Lock, a new-build development in east London, are hardly a secret. Last June, a warning written in big, capital letters was stuck to the window of one flat. 'DO NOT BUY THESE FLATS. TOO HOT,' it read. It was hard to miss for those walking past the looming high-rises and, after being snapped and posted on social media, the placard has garnered more than 500,000 views. More than a year on, during a summer when the UK recorded its second warmest June and fifth hottest July since 1884, residents say heat is still an issue. 'When I'm trying to fall asleep at night, it gets quite unbearable,' said Lucian Ho, 21, a student who lives near the top of a 28-storey building in the development. Options to cool off in his south-facing flat are limited. 'All I can do is open the window,' he said. The development is situated in Tower Hamlets, which is the most densely populated borough in the UK. Eighty-one per cent of households live in purpose-built flats, the second highest proportion in England and Wales and double the London-wide rate. The borough has also seen a massive sky-rise boom, with 71 buildings with 20 or more floors being built between 2014 and 2024. To top it off, it ranks poorly for green space. All these factors come together to make living in the borough a hot box for many. Experts have warned that many of the new homes being built in the UK are not designed to withstand the more extreme summer temperatures being seen due to climate change. They have called for the government to update its upcoming future homes standard to include provisions for overheating homes. The regulations are due to be published this autumn and to come into force from 2027, but the focus has been mainly on how to keep homes warm in winter, rather than to keep them cool in summer. Up the road from Leaside Lock sits another development, Three Waters. 'It feels like you're in a trap,' said Sandra Monteiro, who lives on the 11th floor in one of the complex's blocks. The 41-year-old SEND teacher has lived in the flat with her husband for almost three years but the sweltering heat means she's considering leaving. 'Our temperatures haven't gone below 27C inside the house in the past two months,' she said. Her thermometer peaked at 33C this summer. This is my flat. Leaside Lock development in Bromley-by-Bow. They already discovered 2 sections of my MVHR weren't fitted correctly. It's still like living in an oven even though this has been 'fixed'! @GuinnessHomes #leasidelock When temperatures inside rise above 25C, risks to health rise too, potentially causing or worsening cardiovascular and respiratory issues, sleep disturbance, mental health problems and heat exhaustion. Monteiro said the heat in her flat causes frequent headaches. 'Exhaustion, feeling like we're out of breath. We have experienced feeling very fatigued, even when we wake up,' she said. 'When we travel abroad we don't experience as much exhaustion as we do here in the UK, which is definitely to do with the heat.' The UK Green Building Council has said street trees are a simple and cost effective way to keep homes cool. But Monteiro's block is situated beside the busy A12 and the streets below are barren of any green space. 'If we have the windows open because of the motorway, we get a lot of the dust and the heat that comes from that,' she said. She bought a 25% share of the home with her husband for £121,000. On top of this, she pays £1,264 per month in rent. 'It is my first summer really experiencing these high temperatures and I'm feeling quite unsure about whether I want to continue living here,' she said. A spokesperson for Peabody, which runs Three Waters, said: 'We want residents to feel comfortable in their homes all year round and work with construction partners to ensure homes are designed with ventilation and shading in mind, considering the risk of overheating.' They said that since new regulations to reduce the risk of new-builds overheating were introduced in 2022, they had added features to new homes like external shutters that let in daylight but block out heat. 'We're also looking at materials that help keep homes cooler during summer and warmer in winter,' it said. Guiness Homes, which runs Leaside Lock, said that of the 440 properties in their blocks they had only received complaints from four homeowners about heat inside their homes, all of whom were given adaptations to reduce temperatures. 'The image you have shared relates to a homeowner who had a specific and unique issue in their property which has been addressed,' they said. Farther north in the city sits Kestrel House. The looming 55 metre-tall council block became a symbol of inner-city life after being featured on the cover of The Streets' debut album Original Pirate Material. It lies along a busy thoroughfare in Islington, which – after Tower Hamlets – has the second highest population density in the UK. It also suffers from a lack of green space, and residents have access to an average of 2m2 of green space per capita, the lowest amount of any borough in the UK, according the Friends of the Earth. Chris Brown, 76, has lived at the top of Kestrel House since 1987. In his 38 years living there as a council tenant, he has found heat an increasing problem. In the summer, temperatures inside his 17th floor flat rarely go below 27C. This year, they reached a high of 30C and in previous heatwaves his thermometer has hit a peak of 35C. The semi-retired psychotherapist fitted an air conditioning unit in his living room due to fears about what the heat could be doing to his health. 'I spent as much time as I can in here, in front of the blast of cold air from the air conditioning unit,' he said. Brown has a heart condition, diabetes and chronic fatigue syndrome. 'It does cause people to die, so I became worried,' he said. Hot homes aren't just uncomfortable – they can be deadly. During the heatwaves in 2024, UK Health Security Agency figures estimated that about 358 people died at home, in part due to extreme temperatures. Deaths tend to spike because the heat exacerbates existing medical conditions, rather than directly causing otherwise healthy people to die – overall influenza and pneumonia deaths were 13% higher than they otherwise would have been during the 2024 heatwaves, and circulatory disease deaths, dementia and Alzheimer's deaths were up 11%. The heat affects Brown's current health conditions. 'Heat stress makes my fatigue worse so life is just a little bit more of a struggle,' he said. 'Sleeping became difficult. It tires me out. I was continually feeling more tired than usual.' Tall buildings, especially those surrounded by other looming towers, are susceptible to the urban heat island effect – where materials like concrete and asphalt absorb and retain heat. Brown said the heat sticks around, even when temperatures outside reduce. 'It doesn't cool down. It's like a brick oven,' he said. Councillor Rowena Champion, executive member for environment, air quality and transport for Islington council said: 'We are aware that many people in Islington live in flats built in a different era that weren't designed for extreme heat. This has a real impact especially for older people, those with health conditions, or families with babies. Tackling overheating in homes must be a shared priority for councils, developers and government. In the meantime, we are looking at practical solutions like reflective coatings and green infrastructure to help reduce overheating in tall buildings.' Additional reporting by Saranka Maheswaran and Andy Deng
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Climate
- Daily Mail
Why residents of new build homes say they are far too hot - as Britain bakes in amber alert 34C heatwave
Residents in new build flats are complaining their homes are unbearably hot as they struggle with 35C temperatures while the UK battles its fourth heatwave. Sweltering conditions in high rises across London last year prompted residents of Leaside Lock, in east London, to place desperate signs in their windows reading 'DO NOT BUY THESE FLATS. TOO HOT'. And the problem only seems to have got worse. Homeowners living in new build flats in Tower Hamlets have described the conditions as 'unbearable' while at a block of flats in nearby Three Waters, residents have recorded temperatures reaching almost 30C. Sandra Monteiro, 41, told The Guardian that temperatures inside her 11th-floor home have not gone below 27C for the past two months. 'It feels like you're in a trap,' the SEND teacher said. The conditions, she added, had left her feeling 'out of breath' and 'exhausted', with it also causing her frequent headaches. While 21-year-old student Lucian Ho, who lives on one of the top floors of a 28-storey high rise, said he struggles to sleep because of the heat and his only source of relief is an open window offering little in the way of fresh air or a breeze. Community groups on social media have also become a hive of activity with residents in Greenwich desperately asking for tips to help them beat the heat. One local asked: 'Is anyone else struggling in their new build flat with the heat? I just moved into one recently and the heat is unbearable. Even with the windows opened and a fan. Any tips for coping in the summer living in a new build please?' And their neighbours were quick to offer suggestions including pulling down the blinds and buying air conditioning units. But others were just as frustrated, commenting under the original post that the flats are 'awful'. Talie Eid said: 'Honestly, they're awful. Never warm enough in winter (we don't have standard radiators) and too hot in summer. Keeping blinds/curtains closed during peak time does help a little. We ended up getting an air cooler as fans not enough.' While another said they had moved from a Victorian-era house to a new build and regretted the change, adding their new flat was affecting their mental health. They wrote: 'It's actually starting to affect my health and the health of my pets. I've always lived in a Victorian and made a big mistake moving into a new build. It's unbearable. I feel for everyone who is going through this. It's horrible. 'They build them quick. Charge high rent but don't build them properly with good ventilation. It's very frustrating.' Peter Veress suggested the only way to escape the heat was to splash the cash and invest in an air conditioning unit. He said: 'I was living in a flat a few years back, and in our living room in summer the temperature went up to 37 degrees even though curtains were always closed during the day. 'We bought an Aircon for around £300 and that was helpful when it was running, but as soon we switched off, you felt the heat. As others said, it's summer. Without an aircon in a flat you are cooked.' Another resident said that her and her family simply stopped cooking during the summer, preferring to eat rotisserie chicken and salad on the river bank than make their flat hotter by turning on the oven. But the problem isn't new and Londoners have been seeking advice and ways to mitigate the extreme temperatures inside their flats for a few years. A Reddit thread from 2023 saw one homeowner who had recently moved to their new build flat complain of only having two windows which only open 'a few inches'. The homeowner said their flat could easily reach 28.5C and even at 3am they had seen their thermostat jump up to 27C. In the post they wrote: 'I moved into a new built flat a few months ago and while everything was great at the beginning, I've currently run into a bit of an issue in this weather. 'Basically the flat has windows on only one side in two separate rooms (living room and bedroom) and as such there's little to no draft. The window in the bedroom only opens a few inches as well making it even worse. 'Currently, while it's a lovely 21 degrees outside here in London, my flat is at a less lovely 28.5 degrees. Even at night, at 3AM I checked the thermostat, the temperature was still 27 degrees. 'I haven't been able to sleep properly for over a week and last night I only slept an hour maybe. I just can't seem to sleep properly because of the heat. 'I've got a fan and an air cooler that I put water and ice blocks in so it fans cooler air around the room. Still, the temperature didn't drop below 27 degrees and I'm at my wits end. 'I can't install an air conditioner I think as there's no space on the outside of the building (and the housing association doesn't allow it) so I'm trying to figure out what to do or I'm going to have to crash on a friends couch for the next couple of days. 'Another issue that's adding to the misery is the fact that the flat backs out onto a busy railway and there are probably 50+ trains passing per hour from 4:30 AM until 1 AM. 'The windows are soundproofed well so the noise isn't a problem when I keep everything shut, but the moment I try and air out the heat, I'm greeted with constant noise that a normal human being wouldn't be able to sleep through.' Lorraine Thomas, director of property company View From My Window, explained that the flats were designed with energy efficiency in mind. With extra insulation and thick windows, the flats are warm in the winter and many residents won't even need to put their heating on. But during the summer the same insulation causes the flats to heat up to extreme levels. She told the Daily Mail: 'Windows were put in these flats to provide natural daylight but what's happened is a conservatory effect where it's hotter in summer and colder in winter. 'The size of windows were designed to save on bills but now they are too hot.' She added that fire resistant insulation has added extra layers to buildings already quite energy efficient and said the more flats piled in to blocks, the hotter each home will be. 'Before it wasn't so much of an issue but with new fire safety insulation that's resistant, it's added extra heat.' The building expert also attributed London's dense population to hotter flats, explaining that many of the high rises built now are close to roads, bus routes, train lines and commercial buildings with lots of traffic and footfall and limited green spaces. Ms Thomas added: 'Dense population and area, there's nothing sparse and the overcrowding of blocks with too many flats - it all helps to capture the heat.' The company owner explained that the only way for homeowners to cool off was to invest in air conditioning, explaining that new build windows are designed with health and safety in mind and don't open very far limiting through drafts. 'More and more people will have to get air conditioning because opening windows just doesn't do enough to help,' she said. And it seems Londoners are way ahead of Ms Thomas as recent data from Checkatrade has revealed that demand for air conditioning units has increased by a quarter. Interest in installation for units has risen by 23 per cent on last year as the heatwave pushes homeowners to consider more ways of keeping cool this summer. It comes as parts of Britain are set to hit 34C with health alerts in force amid water shortages in England. The country's fourth heatwave of the summer will be at its peak today, with Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and the outskirts of London set to see the highest temperatures. An amber health alert came into force at 9am for the Midlands, South East, East of England, and London. There are yellow alerts in place across the rest of England. Today will be the fourteenth day that the mercury has risen past the 30C mark, with the heatwave set to continue for the rest of this week. Temperatures are expected to hit 31C on Friday.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Climate
- The Guardian
‘Do not buy these flats': residents warn about unbearable heat inside London new-builds
The sweltering conditions inside Leaside Lock, a new-build development in east London, are hardly a secret. Last June, a warning written in big, capital letters was stuck to the window of one flat. 'DO NOT BUY THESE FLATS. TOO HOT,' it read. It was hard to miss for those walking past the looming high-rises and, after being snapped and posted on social media, the placard has garnered more than 500,000 views. More than a year on, during a summer when the UK recorded its second warmest June and fifth hottest July since 1884, residents say heat is still an issue. 'When I'm trying to fall asleep at night, it gets quite unbearable,' said Lucian Ho, 21, a student who lives near the top of a 28-storey building in the development. Options to cool off in his south-facing flat are limited. 'All I can do is open the window,' he said. The development is situated in Tower Hamlets, which is the most densely populated borough in the UK. Eighty-one per cent of households live in purpose-built flats, the second highest proportion in England and Wales and double the London-wide rate. The borough has also seen a massive sky-rise boom, with 71 buildings with 20 or more floors being built between 2014 and 2024. To top it off, it ranks poorly for green space. All these factors come together to make living in the borough a hot box for many. Experts have warned that many of the new homes being built in the UK are not designed to withstand the more extreme summer temperatures being seen due to climate change. They have called for the government to update its upcoming future homes standard to include provisions for overheating homes. The regulations are due to be published this autumn and to come into force from 2027, but the focus has been mainly on how to keep homes warm in winter, rather than to keep them cool in summer. Up the road from Leaside Lock sits another development, Three Waters. 'It feels like you're in a trap,' said Sandra Monteiro, who lives on the 11th floor in one of the complex's blocks. The 41-year-old SEND teacher has lived in the flat with her husband for almost three years but the sweltering heat means she's considering leaving. 'Our temperatures haven't gone below 27C inside the house in the past two months,' she said. Her thermometer peaked at 33C this summer. This is my flat. Leaside Lock development in Bromley-by-Bow. They already discovered 2 sections of my MVHR weren't fitted correctly. It's still like living in an oven even though this has been 'fixed'! @GuinnessHomes #leasidelock When temperatures inside rise above 25C, risks to health rise too, potentially causing or worsening cardiovascular and respiratory issues, sleep disturbance, mental health problems and heat exhaustion. Monteiro said the heat in her flat causes frequent headaches. 'Exhaustion, feeling like we're out of breath. We have experienced feeling very fatigued, even when we wake up,' she said. 'When we travel abroad we don't experience as much exhaustion as we do here in the UK, which is definitely to do with the heat.' The UK Green Building Council has said street trees are a simple and cost effective way to keep homes cool. But Monteiro's block is situated beside the busy A12 and the streets below are barren of any green space. 'If we have the windows open because of the motorway, we get a lot of the dust and the heat that comes from that,' she said. She bought a 25% share of the home with her husband for £121,000. On top of this, she pays £1,264 per month in rent. 'It is my first summer really experiencing these high temperatures and I'm feeling quite unsure about whether I want to continue living here,' she said. A spokesperson for Peabody, which runs Three Waters, said: 'We want residents to feel comfortable in their homes all year round and work with construction partners to ensure homes are designed with ventilation and shading in mind, considering the risk of overheating.' They said that since new regulations to reduce the risk of new-builds overheating were introduced in 2022, they had added features to new homes like external shutters that let in daylight but block out heat. 'We're also looking at materials that help keep homes cooler during summer and warmer in winter,' it said. Guiness Homes, which runs Leaside Lock, said that of the 440 properties in their blocks they had only received complaints from four homeowners about heat inside their homes, all of whom were given adaptations to reduce temperatures. 'The image you have shared relates to a homeowner who had a specific and unique issue in their property which has been addressed,' they said. Farther north in the city sits Kestrel House. The looming 55 metre-tall council block became a symbol of inner-city life after being featured on the cover of The Streets' debut album Original Pirate Material. It lies along a busy thoroughfare in Islington, which – after Tower Hamlets – has the second highest population density in the UK. It also suffers from a lack of green space, and residents have access to an average of 2m2 of green space per capita, the lowest amount of any borough in the UK, according the Friends of the Earth. Chris Brown, 76, has lived at the top of Kestrel House since 1987. In his 38 years living there as a council tenant, he has found heat an increasing problem. In the summer, temperatures inside his 17th floor flat rarely go below 27C. This year, they reached a high of 30C and in previous heatwaves his thermometer has hit a peak of 35C. The semi-retired psychotherapist fitted an air conditioning unit in his living room due to fears about what the heat could be doing to his health. 'I spent as much time as I can in here, in front of the blast of cold air from the air conditioning unit,' he said. Brown has a heart condition, diabetes and chronic fatigue syndrome. 'It does cause people to die, so I became worried,' he said. Hot homes aren't just uncomfortable – they can be deadly. During the heatwaves in 2024, UK Health Security Agency figures estimated that about 358 people died at home, in part due to extreme temperatures. Deaths tend to spike because the heat exacerbates existing medical conditions, rather than directly causing otherwise healthy people to die – overall influenza and pneumonia deaths were 13% higher than they otherwise would have been during the 2024 heatwaves, and circulatory disease deaths, dementia and Alzheimer's deaths were up 11%. The heat affects Brown's current health conditions. 'Heat stress makes my fatigue worse so life is just a little bit more of a struggle,' he said. 'Sleeping became difficult. It tires me out. I was continually feeling more tired than usual.' Tall buildings, especially those surrounded by other looming towers, are susceptible to the urban heat island effect – where materials like concrete and asphalt absorb and retain heat. Brown said the heat sticks around, even when temperatures outside reduce. 'It doesn't cool down. It's like a brick oven,' he said. Councillor Rowena Champion, executive member for environment, air quality and transport for Islington council said: 'We are aware that many people in Islington live in flats built in a different era that weren't designed for extreme heat. This has a real impact especially for older people, those with health conditions, or families with babies. Tackling overheating in homes must be a shared priority for councils, developers and government. In the meantime, we are looking at practical solutions like reflective coatings and green infrastructure to help reduce overheating in tall buildings.' Additional reporting by Saranka Maheswaran and Andy Deng
